Get Off My Lawn! - The Mad Ramblings of a Gen X-er
"This is the true story of a Gen X-er picked to do a podcast and give his personal views on Pop Culture, Politics, Sports, News and more, So find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. - ‘Get Of My Lawn’ As we grow into an ever changing world and new Generations are born, only one stays the same with their distain for all others - ‘Gen X’. We survived riding bikes without helmets, No cell phones, understanding you go home when the street lights go on. We lived through Hair Metal and watched the birth of Grunge. We witnessed ‘Two’ Bush’s become President (That’s what she said.) and the First African American take office. We watched in horror as the Towers fell and rejoiced at the Socialize Digital Age. (‘The Internet’ - Sorry Al you didn’t invent it.)But all in all, We lived our lives with the understanding that playing it safe is not the way to go through your existence. As the world is facing more turmoil than we have every seen before and as we witness a clear division of our Society a voice of ‘reason’ and ‘sanity’ needs to be heard. To bad that ain’t me … Hear me ramble daily about everything from Pop Culture, Politics, Sports, News and more and get the clear as ‘Mud’ perspective of this Rambling Gen X-er. Enjoy!
Get Off My Lawn! - The Mad Ramblings of a Gen X-er
The Howard Stern Firing Hoax: A Last Shot at Relevance?
Remember when Howard Stern was must-listen radio? When you'd sit in your car, engine off, late for work, because you couldn't bear to miss the end of a segment? Those days are long gone, and what remains is perhaps the most fascinating cautionary tale in modern media.
At 71, the once-rebellious shock jock who built an empire challenging the establishment has become exactly what he once mocked. From commanding millions of daily listeners across major markets to reportedly struggling with an audience of less than 125,000 on SiriusXM, Stern's decline mirrors the transformation of audio entertainment itself. But rather than adapting to the podcast revolution that's made figures like Joe Rogan the new kings of the medium, Stern appears stuck in a bygone era, reportedly disdainful of these new content creators while unable to match their cultural relevance or audience numbers.
The most telling sign of Stern's desperate bid for attention comes from recent reports suggesting his own camp may have generated rumors about his potential firing from SiriusXM as his contract approaches expiration. This manufactured controversy—designed to create buzz around a fading brand—speaks volumes about how far the self-proclaimed "King of All Media" has fallen. Having alienated much of his core audience through increasingly partisan political positions and what many perceive as "softball" interviews with liberal celebrities, Stern now faces the ultimate irony: he has become Don Imus, the aging radio personality he once mercilessly ridiculed.
Whether you were a devoted fan or a casual listener, there's something poignant about watching media titans struggle against industry evolution. Subscribe to "The Mad Ramblings of a Gen Xer" as we continue exploring these cultural shifts twice weekly once the kids return to school. Because sometimes the truth isn't just stranger than fiction—it's a lot more revealing about who we are and how we consume entertainment.
#howardstern #siriusxm #news
What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to. It is now dumber for having listened to it. You don't know what that ought to is, mr Trash. I'd show you, but I'm too old, I'm too tired, I'm too fucking blind. If I were the man I was five years ago, I'd pick a flamethrower to this place.
Speaker 2:Do you understand the words that are?
Speaker 1:coming out of my mouth. You want answers. I think I'm entitled, you want answers.
Speaker 2:I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. We've said it once, we've said it twice.
Speaker 2:We've said it a million times the truth. Shall I set you free? This is Dennis Kettles, my mom, the Mad Ramblings of a Gen Xer. We want to talk about the desperate Howard Stern and his bid to stay relevant by creating his own firing rumors. It's almost the end of the summer here and we're very excited about that because the kids are going back to school, so that's always going to be a lot of fun and also we're going to get a chance to be able to do, not daily pods, but we're going to be able to do, you know, pods maybe twice a week.
Speaker 2:I know we've said that in the past, but we have created some time to do these things. We freed up some other projects because we really enjoy doing that. I really enjoy doing this pod and we actually have some guests that have requested to come on the show and we, according to feed spot, I think we are anywhere between the number three or the number six most popular gen x show on podcast form. So you know what we got to keep this party rolling, and that's what howard stern's been doing since 1981. He's been trying to keep the party rolling. He's been trying to stay relevant from detroit to washington, to new New York to simulcasting in Philadelphia to basically going all over Trusty Radio to then heading over to the likes of Sirius XM and one of the biggest contracts ever for a DJ host or a shock jock or whatever you want to label him. He's been labeled many things. He's always clamored for always. He's always clamored for that acceptance, going back from writing his first book to the movie, to America's Got Talent. He's always wanted to be mainstream. He's always wanted to have that mainstream he. When he first started out, he was rebel radio. You know, he was the anti Don Imus Ooh. When he went to WNBC, he, he, he, he, he was shaking up the system. Well, the problem is, when you hit a certain age, like 71, you start becoming the system. You start becoming what you claim to hate and we've said this before. We did an episode months ago that he's basically Don Imus. He's, he's, he's. He sees the the wolves of Joe Rogan and others, you know, not only clamoring at the door but passing him.
Speaker 2:In reference to downloads and viewers and listenerships, howard Stern went from having millions of views and listens a day or I should say millions of listens a day over on Sirius XM radio listeners a day he's now down to they're saying about a hundred thousand his contracts coming up. So what happened? You know XM said yes, we are going to offer Howard a deal. The problem is we're not going to offer him anywhere near what we gave him when he first came over to Sirius XM in 2006. Or that second contract. We're not going to offer anything that big because there's no way we can keep paying that salary because we've gone from millions of people listening to a day to maybe 100,000. We've gone from this controversial shock jock who shook the establishment, to this guy that now is this pretty much a softball interview to the liberal left. And there's, you know he's alienated his own listenership by saying Donald Trump fans, supporters, don't listen. Well, you know, when that's more than 50 plus percent of the population and they hear you and they do it. You need to find a way to stay relevant and they do it. You need to find a way to stay relevant. So with his new contract coming up, there's, there, is there, there is he's. He's got to find a way to to keep the money train rolling. He has said before he's nowhere close. He's nowhere close to being near retirement.
Speaker 2:So when the rumors came out that Sirius XM was potentially going to fire Howard Stern and really they wouldn't even be firing him, they just would not be renewing his contract that they were going to fire him. There was a little bit of a uproar. It made median headlines that he was going to get fired because his numbers right now are pathetic. So all of a sudden, sirius XM came out and said that uh, I don't know where this is. Just recently just came out and said I don't know where this is coming from. We plan to make Stern an offer when his contract ends in the fall. That's basically what they said we plan to make him an offer, but it's not going to be anywhere near it.
Speaker 2:So it turns out that most of these rumors and speculation about him getting fired were created by Stern himself and the Stern camp to stay relevant. He's basically a rotting corpse when it comes to this new medium Not even a new medium in podcast format on YouTube, on Rumble, all these other channels you go. He's a dinosaur. So it turns out that his own camp has come out and basically put out the rumors that he was going to get fired Not that SiriusXM did not want to invest anymore in the show, that they were going to fire him and it was kind of a pathetic attempt on a viral scale to get people to tune back in. That's all it was. I mean, his numbers are so low right now he is trying to generate anything he can to get people to listen again, to become relevant, and in my mind, this is just a desperate hoax, that it's one of those things that you are 71 years old, you've been in this game since 81. You know, sometimes it's, you know what, sometimes it's, it's, sometimes it's welcome to the party and sometimes it's time just to leave the party. But he has said that I have no, I have no, I, I I'm not going to retire.
Speaker 2:And evidently he hates podcasters. He hates the likes of Joe Rogan, who gets millions of views and downloads a day. He evidently hates Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy, who's also now on SiriusXM, that he basically avoids her like the fucking plague because he feels that these people aren't as talented as he is. Well, you may have been talented when you were doing but bongo Fiesta. You may have been talented when you were doing us open swords or the channel nine show. You may have been relevant when you were with Sherman Hemsley and blackface. Well, that's probably not a good thing. How he didn't get canceled for that, and it's not the first time Howard Stern wore black blackface. I don't know how he didn't get cancer for that, but it's one of these things that he hates these podcasters because he doesn't feel they're as talented as him. But they're on this new media or me, I mean, it's not even new that allows them to reach millions of people a day, millions of downloads, millions of views, and he is.
Speaker 2:He is befuddled to the facts that he can't figure out how to, how he, how this is fucking happening, how these people that that have less talent than he does, or perceive that less talented he does, can be this popular. So the idea is this you had a $500 million contract with SiriusXM. You're not bringing in the revenue. You're not bringing in the subscribers, the paid subscribers to XM Radio. You are not bringing in the advertisers that you once did. You have become this hard-line Democrat who's basically severed relationships with anyone that's conservative, especially Donald Trump, who had been on your show multitudes of times so you could bring on the likes of Steve Colbert. You are 71 years old, you probably are. You're probably where you want to be financially.
Speaker 2:So once, sometimes, once you reach that pinnacle and I always think of it this way and I always thought Howard Stern went down maybe after he got rid of already line that he, he has gone downhill since he's gotten more money, and it's one of those things you become complacent Once you get that paycheck, once you get that big paycheck, once you are secured for life. Sometimes people are just like, hey, listen, you know, I'm at the pinnacle now there's nowhere to go but down. I have enough money to secure myself, for my family and myself. Why do I have to keep doing this? Well, you know, sometimes it's the ego that drives you. That's what drove Don Imus.
Speaker 2:The ego of Don Imus drove him into becoming what he was at the end the shell of himself, this bitter old man who, who was once the darling in the early mid seventies and early eighties, the darling of New York radio, that that was the voice of his generation. But sometimes, like I said, the generation gets old and Howard Stern in his seventies, was never, was never a Gen Xer, was, was never the you know, it was a baby boomer, that he, he was a guy that kind of related to the Gen X because of what he, what he did and that how he spewed things and how he spoke truth, which led to millions of people listening a day. You know, starting first in, like I said, detroit, and then Washington, then New York, then simulcasting in Philadelphia, so we had millions of viewers a day. Now it's reported he has less than 125,000 listeners a day. That's a big drop for someone with his type of ego and, like I said, when you all of a sudden alienate and become woke and alienate half of your listeners and I love it because he said it back in 2003, by the way, I kind of take that uh, the compliment that I'm woke he fired back on his radio show I'll tell you how I feel about it.
Speaker 2:To me, the opposite of woke is being asleep, and that means I can't get behind Trump, which is what I think it means. Or support people who want to be transgender I do support people who want to be transgender or I am the vaccine dude. Call me woke. You fucking want, and that's just crazy. You can't go out and attack half your core audience and you know it's it's. You go out and attack the, the unvaccinated, and there were people, for multiple reasons, that didn't want to get vaccinated and it turned out that that not getting vaccinated for some was probably a great idea, because these vaccinations, these RMM vaccinations, are actually DNA altering vaccinations and I don't want to. I will get into that one day because I have a lot of friends that are in the bio industry, who are biologists, who are chemists, who are professors, who've talked about the DNA altering effect of getting multiple vaccines. But we'll get into that one day. But he became what he said that he hated Howard Stern did. He became that person and he continues to be that person over and over again. And it's just getting worse. There's, there's no Jackie Martlin anymore. It hasn't been for years Already.
Speaker 2:I, like I said, I thought I stopped listening to the show when Artie Lange left Because I was like I'm done. It was fun, it was cutting edge, it was water cooler material to talk about as you drove in. As you drove in, you sometimes would be 15-20 minutes late to work because you were in the middle of a Howard Stern segment and you didn't want to leave the car and there was no way, unless you had a radio in your office, that you could listen. But it's not that way anymore. With these podcasts. People just like the podcast. You download them. You just download the podcast and what do you do? You listen to it at your leisure. You listen to it at your lunchtime. Now you can have your computer in your office. You just listen to these podcasts as you're working. You don't whistle while you work. You listen to Joe Rogan while you work. That's bad whistling.
Speaker 2:I need to drink some water today, but he hasn't gotten. He hasn't caught up with the new media and I don't think he ever will. I had to have some, I don't know. Asmr had a little black rifle coffee there. It's sad, though For all the times, like I said, he made fun of Don Imus, for all the times he ridiculed Mr Imus because he was he was the old fart of radio. Well, the old fart of radio is now 71 years old and creating hoaxes about his own demise, so he could turn around and figure out a way to stay relevant.
Speaker 2:We did a pod the other day where we talked about the 50th anniversary of jaws and how jaws, at times as a kid, scared the bejesus out of me because I was a youngster when jaws came out. And I was thinking about it the other day because this movie came on and there was a made for tv movie with bernie casey and it was a a horror film that was, I don't remember. Scott Glenn of the Right Stuff fame and a bunch of other movies in the 80s was in it and it was a film that when you were five, six years old it really even add the fact that the effects back then were even considered to be bad. But it was just this film that just scared the bejesus out of me. As a kid I can remember sitting in my parents' unfinished basement with a black and white television, using the pliers to turn the channels and having the Reynolds wrap over the antennas to make sure you can create a better reception. And when this movie came on, even if it was two o'clock in the afternoon, you had to watch it. But at the end you were running up the stairs in the from the scary basement Cause you were afraid these monsters were going to get you.
Speaker 2:That movie, of course, was gargoyles, not to be confused with the early 2000 series gargoyles, which wasn't bad. But this was a movie in reference to a father and a daughter, who were basically biologists, that are on this expedition in this far out towns in the desert and they come across these gargoyles. And these gargoyles appear every 400 years and they again. It's one of those theories. It's one male that impregnates multiple males, multiple females, multiple females, and they create all these eggs. So basically, what happens is every 400 years mankind has to destroy these gargoyles so they don't take over the earth because they multiply so quickly. This is probably going back to the Knights of the Round Table as well, when they initially first appeared. So the gargoyles are reappearing. The gargoyles are coming back to life, and it was. It was the fact that the original guard have you ever seen land of the lost? The original land is lost.
Speaker 2:The sleigh stacks were, as a kid were scary, but not that really scary. These gargoyles were like that, except for Bernie Casey's gargoyle. He had these eyes and he had this deep. He had this deep, melodious voice that just kind of scared the crap out of you when you were a kid and you would see him coming and he talked about taking over mankind and destroying the earth and ruling the earth and making men slaves. And it was his presence in this horrible costume the earth and ruling the earth and making men slaves. And it was his presence in this horrible costume, that just. And these horns. That just scared the shit out of you as a kid.
Speaker 2:And I'm watching this show and I'm like I'm watching this movie and I like so. I can remember watching it's like one o'clock in the afternoon on channel 17 and then seeing this guy and that, finishing the movie and literally leaving the lights on in the basement and running upstairs because you were so scared. After watching this film, well, I watched it again for the first time, probably in about 30 years. I watched it was on. Uh, I was on one of these horror channels and I watched it again. I'm watching this film and I love it because my youngest son comes downstairs and he goes and I'm watching this and this is how desensitized kids are now and he goes. What are you watching? I'm watching. I was like so I'm watching. This movie called Gargoyle Scared the crap out of me as a kid. He looked at it. Now, remember this was a childhood trauma. This was something that made me sleep with a nightlight, made me sleep with the lights on for weeks. After watching it, my son comes downstairs, he looks at it and he goes. Well, that just sucks, that's not scary, and he went back upstairs. So I'm thinking to myself. Really, this, this literally caused me trauma. So I'm thinking to myself really, this, this literally caused me trauma, and now my son is making fun of me for watching it. It's just one of those days. It's just one of those things.
Speaker 2:Like I mentioned before, we're going to start starting next week, cause that's when the kids go back to school. Kids go back to school early. Here. We're going to make sure we're going to try to do at least two pods a day, so make sure you stay tuned for that. We're also gonna be on youtube and rumble. We have them, but we haven't been posting a lot lately because we've just been a little busy because of the summertime. But, like I said, we really do enjoy I'd really do enjoy doing this pod and, as always, just remember the truth shall always set you free. This is my law and the mad ramblings of a gen xer, and I'm out of here, thank you.