I’m going to be MIA online until Jan 2nd.  Time to wrap up the year with some eating, some reflecting, some writing, some planning, some more eating, and some relaxation.

It’s been a great year and I have you to thank for it.  Lots of great new stuff coming up in 2012 and I look forward to spreading more laughter and understanding in the world.

A couple notes:
I’m running my “gift a free album” promotion until Dec 24th.  Give any of my albums for free to a friend and get a free one for yourself.  All the info is at http://su.pr/1eu9uP

If you haven’t heard my subversive Xmas single “What Santa Wants” yet, download it for free at www.WhatSantaWants.com

And, as a wrap-up, here’s my most popular posts of 2011…
7 Innocent Words That Turn Women On

The Superman Snuggie – Downfall of Western Civilization

Anyone Trying Chime.in Yet?

Top 10 Strangest Dummies and Idiot’s Guide Books

Celebrating Elvis Presley’s “Birthday” According To Michelle Bachmann

Disney D23 Expo Wrap-Up

Indians Are The Smartest Immigrants

An Open Letter To The World From Satan

10 Weirdest/Coolest Disney Cover Songs

Sex Stores Bankrupt – 24 Hour Porn DVDs The Culprit

Thanks for reading!  Be sure to get the big picture… hear the music, laugh at the comedy, grab a t-shirt… at www.RoadsideAttraction.com

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Once difference between just liking a song and being influenced by a song is that the writer feels they could have written that same song under the right circumstances.  As much as I love the Beatles, you won’t find any on this list.  Even though their influence is inescapable, I don’t think I’d have written the songs the same way.  The ones on this list make sense to me immediately because they make me say “that’s what I’d have done if I thought of it!”

If you know my work, some of these won’t be a surprise.  Or, at least, it could be an aha moment of “that’s where he stole ripped off borrowed that idea from!”  And if you don’t know my work here’s a good place to get started listening to it.

Don’t Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult
Yes, it’s the cowbell song.  This is one of my earliest songwriting favorites.  The main guitar riff is a classic and the vocal melodies are just repetitive enough to lock them in your head. I probably would have messed it up with too many variations.  Though I definitely would have dropped the whole prog-rock middle section and left it as a 3 minute pop song, but that’s just me.

Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys
As far as I’m concerned, this is the greatest pop song ever written.  Brian Wilson called it a “pocket symphony”.  A regular length pop song that cycled through different movements like a symphony.  Not to mention, the first use of distorted bass and the theremin hook.  Seriously cutting edge stuff for the time.  This song was directly responsible for a song called “Flat World” that my band had a minor radio hit with in the late 90′s.  Though with that one we used a lot of Carribean and Latin influence in the groove, the idea of symphony style movements was the main idea we were working with.

Love Shack by The B-52′s
Hell yes…. Granted, Fred Schneider should never have been allowed near a microphone.  Did you know he did a solo album?  Yeah, neither did anyone else.  But this song falls into my “It’s absolute nonsense, but so much fun!” type of song.  It’s one of those ridiculous songs that anyone can sing along with.  It’s accessible, but still has a great arrangement.  Plus it’ll be played at weddings forever.  I’ve always harbored a dream of writing a great lasting wedding reception song.  With my luck I’ll probably end up writing something closer to The Chicken Dance than Love Shack.

Whiskey Lullaby by Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley
I love really fun songs and I love really really sad songs.  And this one is a recent discovery for me.  It’s got the creative turn of phrase that every country hit seems to need now.  “He put the bottle to his head and pulled the trigger.” But unlike other songs, it actually surpasses the hook to have an actual story.  The lyrics about heartbreak and alcohol abuse would bring a tear to anyone’s eye.  Plus I could listen to Alison Krauss sing the ingredients from the back of Windex bottle.

Colors of the Wind from “Pocahontas”
There was bound to be a Disney song on here.  And there’s probably quite a few more that could make the list.  But this one is a little different, because I didn’t really like the movie all that much.  The story is a bit bland for Disney standards.  But this song is a stunner and the Vanessa Williams version in particular is a treat to listen to.  This is the kind of song that is written in the blandest pop ballad style with preachy lyrics, but the melody carries it to all the right places.  The lift on the first line of the chorus going into that Am chord makes the whole thing.  Sometimes a song is made in two measures, and that’s definitely the case here.

The Bad Touch by The Bloodhound Gang
Ok, enough of the serious stuff for a bit.  Bloodhound Gang songs are either awesome or horrible.  Rarely in between.  And The Bad Touch is definitely awesome.  And it’s all about the lyrics.  Total tongue twister laden with bizarre and hilarious sexual jokes “Me and you do the kind of stuff only Prince would sing about.”  Nobody would accuse this band of being amazing musicians, but this is one of the greatest sets of funny sexual lyrics ever written.  You have to listen a zillion times to hear it all.

Ladies and Gentleman… “The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites!” by Butch Walker
Butch is one of my absolute favorite songwriters right now.  In fact, the whole album this song comes from is always in rotation for me.  One day when I told my girlfriend that this was my favorite song from this album, she said, “Of course it is.  It sounds like a chorus you would write.”  God bless that girl.  Butch makes a good chunk of his living writing songs for other artists.  He’s written a lot of hits and knows the formula.  In his own work he takes that formula and gets much more creative with it.  His lyrics are very visual and his melodies support them every step of the way.

Fuck You by Cee-Lo
Yeah, it’s just about played out now.  But I still like it.  And not the safe “Forget You” version either.  I think it’s hilarious and awesome that he found mainstream success with this song.  And the first time I heard it literally slammed a fist down on my desk and went “Why didn’t I think of that!”  My favorite songs make me happy and angry at the same time.  This is the kind of song that drives me to pick up a guitar and find something new again.

Ok, this is turning out particularly long.  So I think I’ll do a part 2 to come out on Friday.  Keep a watch out for it!

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

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Years ago I had front row tickets to see Warrant, Firehouse, and Trixter.  At one point during the show, Jani asked me from the stage “Hey, where’s the best place to party around here?”  I said, “Nowhere.  You’re in Santa Clara.”

Warrant were always compared to Poison and there were plenty of similarities.  But I never thought Poison could really pull of “serious”, “Every Rose” not withstanding.  Warrant, however, really seemed to grow as a musical unit and create some interesting stuff.  If you haven’t heard their album “Dog Eat Dog”, give it a go.  There’s some really outstanding stuff on there.  Yep, it sounds like 80′s hair band music, but more sophisticated lyrically and arrangement-wise.

Sorry to see you go Jani…

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Pretty sure I’ll be back to being an audiobook guy again soon.  90% of the podcasts I’ve been listening to are headache inducing.  Now, keep in mind, I’m listening to those classified as “comedy”.  I put that in quotes, because I’m hard pressed to find the comedy in a lot of them.  And I’m not fishing around in the ether.  I went to iTunes and download a bunch of the top rated shows.

Picture this… A morning radio show with no budget.  Or maybe a bullshit session with your friends over a beer at your house, where everything is funny, but if you try to tell the story later it inevitably ends with “well I guess you had to be there.”  That’s most comedy podcasts.  And I was there listening, and it still wasn’t funny.

Good lord, one of them had 3 guys that constantly talked over each other.  Couldn’t understand what was going on half the time.

As any comedian will tell you, there’s a difference between telling a funny story and riffing with your friends in the living room, and actually creating professional comedy.  That’s why you constantly some poor schmuck whose friends told him he was hilarious at parties bombing on stage at any given open mic night.

But many of those same comedians are doing the same thing with their podcasts.  And some of these people, no kidding, I absolutely adore on stage.  Some of the funniest comedians I know.  And the podcast turns into, “Well, we’ve got an hour of talking to do.  Let’s just keep talking.”

One reason I’ve never done a podcast of my own is because I’m just not opinionated enough to fill an hour of jabber every week.  It takes me two years to write and hour of comedy and a year to write 4 or 5 songs.  That’s because I throw away A LOT of material before it gets near a stage.  I wouldn’t be any less picky with a podcast.  But I don’t think one podcast a year would be a big hit.

And now there’s the phenomenon of live podcasts done at venues.  Essentially people paying to see a few people sit around and shoot the shit for an hour.  On other words, these comedians have taken what used to happen backstage before and after the show and actually make money with it.

I’ll admit, they are good at developing their communities.  Catch phrases galore and plenty of inside jokes and self-referential stories.  People get hooked on that and don’t realize that there really isn’t much of substance happening.

Strangely enough, the two comedy podcasts I’ve found that I actually like so far, have very little comedy in them.  but they don’t attempt to.  Marc Maron’s WTF podcast has amazing interviews with a variety of comics.  For me, as a comedian, it’s invaluable to hear interviews like this.  He gets deep into their careers and psyche to see how they came to be where they are.  Fascinating, and rarely a laugh.

I’m also enjoying Adam Corolla’s podcast.  Also not funny, though they often try.  Corolla has created his niche as they guy that can expound upon just about any subject for a few minutes and sound like he knows what he’s talking about.  Even if he doesn’t.  He’s the Cliff Claven on broadcasters.  It’s what everyone else is trying to do and not achieving.

So they’re not all bad.  But a lot of them are.  And these are people that are making at least part of their living doing this.  So my lesson learned is that just like the music charts, sifting off the top is a shallow experience with not much quality.

Next I’ll be getting out of the comedy listings to see what else if out there and hope for something useful.  Not giving up yet, but boy those audio books are looking good again…

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

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If only it were this easy....

I was surfing last night (yes, on a perfectly legitimate site), and there was this ad for “7 Innocent Words That Turn Women On”.  “Well,” I thought to myself, “In the interests of science and psychology, I should check this out.”

They claim you can use a few normal little words in a perfectly innocent context and have a woman panting and naked in no time.  Suuuuuure….

But hey, let’s check it out, shall we?  Apparently there’s a right way and wrong way to do this.

“Wet”
Right Way: (When she comes in from the rain…) Oh, you’re so wet.
Wrong Way: I think I just wet my pants

“Deep”
Right Way: (When talking about feelings and emotions…) And how does that make you feel, deep inside?
Wrong Way: … and that’s when I left her floating face down in the deep end of the pool.

“Come”
Right Way: (When you’re waiting for her to come over to your house…” I can’t wait for you to come.
Wrong Way: Come.  Heel.  Sit.  Stay.

“Hard”
Right Way: (When she’s talking about a challenge she’s facing…) Do you like it when it’s hard?
Wrong Way: Do you have any money?  I’m a little hard up.

“Eat/Mouth”
Right Way: (When you’re giving her food…) Here, just put it in your mouth.
Wrong Way: (When you’re giving her a GHB spiked drink…) Here, just put it in your mouth.

“Inside”
Right Way: (When she says something that makes you happy…) You make me so happy.  You make me feel warm inside when I’m with you.
Wrong Way: I’m leaving you locked inside until you stop screaming.

“Dripping”
Right Way: (When her ice cream is starting to melt…) Baby, you’re dripping all over yourself.
Wrong Way: This medicine I’m taking causes anal leakage.  I’m constantly dripping all over.

There it is boys and girls… Talk to your lady in the right way and get lucky.  Talk to her in the wrong way and get a restraining order.  The choice is yours.

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com
http://www.facebook.com/philjohnsoncomedy

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Rolling up behind me is a dude in a BMW or Mercedes… because it’s ALWAYS a Beamer or a Mercedes.  And he flashes his lights at me.

What he’s saying by flashing his lights is “I have an expensive car and I like to go fast and can’t be bothered to turn my wheel slightly to the right to go around you because you are but a plebeian while I drive a fancy car that I probably can’t really afford and I’m really just leasing, and you, little Toyota, should move out of my way as if I were a Japanese emperor proceeding to my temple.”

Or more succinctly, “Flash, flash… I am an asshole.”

Don’t get me wrong.  If someone is behind me and wants to go faster, I’ll move over if there’s room.  But when I get the light flash?  I will miss my exit if it means I can stay in front that jackass for another few miles.

I’ve never been good at taking orders, particularly when I don’t see the point of them.  It’s why I’d have been terrible in the military.  No drill sergeant ever said, “Would you mind dropping and giving me 20?  It will be good for your health and morale.”

My girlfriend says I have a problem with authority.  Which worries her because she’d really like to be the authority in our house.

It’s not authority though.  I’m a natural contrarian and I don’t respond well to orders.  I can be a passive aggressive contrarian too.  Stealthy and annoying all at the same time.  It’s a time saver.  It’s very Zen to do nothing in the face of an idiot hollering orders.

So now I shall drive to a comedy club to play some music tonight.  And woe to the jerkoff that flashes his lights behind me.  We’ll both be late.

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

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I had see this guy’s ads for Miracle Water before, but forgot about them until this past Saturday AM as I was enjoying my complimentary continental breakfast in my hotel room.  On my TV appears Peter Popoff – con artist extraordinaire.

Despite being debunked as a faith healer in the 80′s by James Randi, Popoff now markets Miracle Water which is supposed to not only cure your ills, but also erase your debt.  Yep, you read that right.  Apparently this little tube of water makes the collection agencies go away.

Hey, next time a bill collector calls, tell them you don’t have the money right now, but that your vial of miracle water is on it’s way.  I’m sure they’ll be happy to wait for your good luck to arrive.

Now, I will give him this much credit… At least the water is free.  I’m utterly shocked that it’s not $14.95.  But apparently he has enough morals to only scam you out of money after you get your free tube of water.  Or he did market testing and figured out he can make more on the back end by giving it away for free up front.

What happens when you order?  Well, you’ve now entered <cue echo> THE SALES FUNNEL…. </echo>  ‘Ol Petey will spam you religiously with one scam after another to heal all your ills if you just send him a few more dollars.

I would love to think that a blog post like this might change someone’s mind and convince them to not listen to idiots like Peter Poppoff.  Unfortunately I’m pretty sure anyone even considering this yahoo’s claims as facts have the reading comprehension of a marmot and very few computer skills.

I know you must be thinking, “How could anyone actually buy into this?”  It must be working for him though.  It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to get an infomercial produced and on the air.  Which means he’s making many times that in return.  And yes, it does relieve all of your financial problems… If you’re Peter Popoff.

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

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1. No more unlimited data plans.  AT&T discovered that people actually like to use the product they buy and decided not to let you.  Much like insurance companies.  “Oh, you wanted to actually USE the product?  That will cost you extra.”

2. Expanded service areas… Unless you’re near hills or buildings or anything large or people.  I think they turn some of their towers off periodically to save power.

3. Spectacular customer service.  AT&T recently added a section to their TOS stating that further verbal abuse of their customer service reps could allow them to terminate your service.  If you have so many people yelling at your reps, maybe you ought to fix the reasons the yelling is happening, hmm?  And yes, my girlfriend assumes this clause was put in because of me.

4. Loads of junk mail.  I get letters in the mail at least twice a week from AT&T offering me a bundle package that “saves me money on my current products”.  Except for the bundles don’t include the products I use and if they did, wouldn’t be cheaper anyway.

In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I’m doing my best to no be an AT&T customer.  I moved to a different cell provider and sold my AT&T stock.  I still have my home phone service with them.  Tried a VOIP service, but found it absolutely impossible to get my number transferred from AT&T to the new service.  Need the number for my business, so it didn’t work.  The VOIP company said that AT&T was the only company to give them problems with those transfers.

So yeah, not a lot of humor today.  Just warning my friends away from companies that jerk you around.

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

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It’s not exactly an exciting read, but at least I can get it all in one place.  At least I thought I could.  It does pretty good with the propositions, but it falls apart on the candidates.  And it doesn’t include a lot of the local stuff, either candidates for props.

I understand that the candidate has to adhere to the campaign spending limits to have the option of purchasing space in the guide.  That’s fine.  The candidates who are over the spending limits, we’re probably well aware of already.

But it seems the 3rd parties are getting a raw deal somehow.  Or they’re screwing themselves.  The Democrats and Republicans seem to use their 250 words to good effect.  Even if a lot of it just comes off as patting themselves on the back.

The 3rd party candidates can barely compose a full sentence for some reason.  Here’s an example of Andrew “Andy” Favor, the Libertarian candidate for Controller:

“Pro-business, freedom, Frugal.”

What am I supposed to derive from that?  You’re pro-freedom.  Good job, yahoo.  And for Pete’s sake, don’t bother with the nickname.  I vowed years ago to never vote for anyone with a stupid nickname.

A few candidates only put their website address.  Kind of dumb considering their site address is also listed next to their name.  Am I really supposed to vote for someone that won’t even take the time to write a statement out?

Which lead to my question… Are they charged by the word for these?  I have no idea, but I’d like to find out.

In one candidate’s statement, not only did she just put her website.  She put it as an email address.  With an “@” and some blogspot address.  I’m all for supporting an underdog.  But if you’re running for state office and nobody likes you even enough to help you build a website and teach you how to use it… maybe you’re not the future of California.

I was particularly struck by how many of the 3rd party candidates seem so naive about what they could accomplish.  One candidate said he’d bring home all the troops from the Middle East.  And he was running for Board of Equalization or something.  I’m always in favor of 3rd parties, but they need to work a little harder on who they let run.

And if anyone knows how the finances of the voter’s guide works, please leave a comment and let me know.  If the smaller candidates are getting jacked, someone needs to raise a ruckus.

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Today I’m sitting in my brother’s apartment in LA killing some time before my set tonight.  So, no excuses.

But then, to be a communicator one must have an opinion.  Opinions drive the internet.  From Yelp to who gets retweeted to what Google thinks of your site.

And some days I don’t have an opinion.  I like not having an opinion.  I just looked at Google’s top trending topics for today.  And with the exception of Bob Hope (why are people looking up Bob Hope?), I had no connection nor opinion of any of the topics whatsoever.

So, in lieu of talking about anything that anyone currently gives a rat’s patootie about, I will present a few random opinions…

Butch Walker is an entirely underrated songwriter.
Some articles of clothing are entirely too green for their own good.
- I don’t mean “green” in the environmental sense either.  Just green.
Angelina Jolie is the modern female version of Bruce Willis.
- We can only hope she doesn’t go bald and play the harmonica.
The British spell “theatre” incorrectly.
Wyclef Jean could be the Ronald Reagan of Haiti
Video games are an entirely valid way of wasting one’s life.
You are a nerd about some subject.  Come out of the closet.

There…. opinions.  Love me oh internet.

Phil Johnson
http://www.RoadsideAttraction.com

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