Update 11/24/20: Blind Mike returns to the podcast to provide an update on how things are going and his plan going forward. Spoiler alert: He’s still fake-laughing at everything that KIrk Minihane says. Note: “The Return” on 11/23 was just a boring segment during which Blind Mike and Minihane talked about the Cheers sitcom.
Update 9/28/2020: Blind Mike announced yesterday that he won’t return to the podcast until sometime in 2021.
Update 9/8/20: Blind Mike is taking a leave of absence from the podcast for health reasons.
Update 8/24/20: Kirk Minihane is back, and Blind Mike is once again fake-laughing at everything Kirk says.
Update 8/23/20: The Kirk Minihane Show podcast returns on Monday, August 24. Last night, the trio reunited on the Mike and the Minifans YouTube show to argue with Turtleboy about why or whether the podcast takes shots at everyone else but criticism of Minihane is off limits.
Update 7/27/20: The podcast is on hiatus while Minihane takes time off to deal with recurring depression issues.
Update 7/22/20: Incredible — Blind Mike implies that WEEI’s Chris Curtis fake-laughs too much.
Update 7/16/20: Steve Robinson is so intimidated by Kirk Minihane that he pees in a bottle during the show rather than take a bathroom break.
Update 7/13/20: Blind Mike admitted on the podcast that he’s afraid to criticize Kirk Minihane.
Update 6/27/20: In an “absolutely fine” conference call, Barstool has apparently agreed to get serious about marketing and promotion of the podcast. This seems to be part of a mutual effort to repair the relationship between Barstool and the Minifans. “They seemed eager to try to get to some point where they’re happy and we’re happy.” Time will tell. Listen below.
Update 6/22/20: “…I would be stunned if this show was still at Barstool by Labor Day…”
Update 6/20/20: In the aftermath of the “Kmarko” controversy, the relationship between the show and Barstool Hq. seems to be shaky. Kirk Minihane has regularly floated the idea of taking the podcast independent on a subscription basis. Stay tuned.
Update 5/27/20: Now that The Kirk Minihane Show is on SiriusXM for one hour on the Barstool Sports SiriuxXM channel each Wednesday morning (and likely to expand its profile on satellite radio beyond that), it’s even more important for the compulsive fake-laugher and the servile producer to stop acting like yes men with Stockholm Syndrome making a hostage tape.
First, Some Background Info for Those Unfamiliar with the Podcast
The Kirk Minihane Show is a unique, popular, and entertaining Monday-through-Friday podcast on the Barstool Sports network with an intensely loyal following.
On Apple Podcasts, it is described as “a daily podcast from America’s most talented on-air personality, featuring Minihane’s raw, uncensored commentary on sports, politics, culture, and things that matter.”
Minihane, the self-described Podcast Jesus, has emphasized that it’s actually a comedy show, with minimal sports content.
Sitting across the studio desk (or remotely) are sidekick @BlindMike_ (also self described) Geary and executive producer @BigSteve207 Robinson.
Minihane is apparently only contractually obligated to deliver a 50-minute, Monday-through-Friday podcast, but he generally gives his fans about two-hours plus of daily content, which usually drops at about 11 a.m. Eastern time.
The mercurial and contrarian Minihane made his name in the media as the co-host of the top-rated, morning-drive Kirk and Callahan radio show on Boston sports radio WEEI.
As widely reported in the Boston-area news outlets through the warped mainstream-media lens, parent company Entercom ended the radio show in part as a result of pressure from a local activist and others and the cancel culture generally.
Since the departure of Minihane and former partner/frenemy Gerry Callahan (who has launched his own podcast), WEEI’s ratings have cratered.
On a national basis, the fundamentally mismanaged Entercom/Radio.com brand is circling the drain.
Minihane launched his Barstool show last June. Barstool CEO Erika Nardini interviewed Minihane on her Token CEO podcast on April 29 during which she appropriately summed up his podcast as “basically your world, so it’s your unique perspective based on how you feel about Boston media, Internet media, PC culture. I describe you as like it’s one part family life, it’s what you’re ranting about right now, to a dissection of the headlines and the hypocrisy of the media. Three it’s like the weirdo, goof-troop around you… and I think the last thing is if you [intelligible] sports period, but you have a bent towards Boston, you always have a point of view on Boston in particular.”
Parenthetically, Barstool is facing increasing criticism that it has gravitated away from its edgy roots to become an SJW-dominated “HuffStool” (as coined by Turtleboy Sports).
Minihane responded to Nardini that “Not so much sports, but yeah…it’s like a joke within a joke within a joke…The most claustrophobic show in the history of the world.”
The podcast has a devoted, passionate following, but you need to listen to a few episodes to begin processing the inside jokes. As Minihane alluded to above, it’s a podcast about a podcast.
Minihane spends a lot of time profanely trashing people, with the footnote that they are “very nice.” The amount of F-bombs dropped is equivalent to what you might see or hear on an average episode of HBO’s The Sopranos or Successsion.
If you’ve ever had a co-worker whose reactions to similar situations or stimuli changes radically from day to day, that’s kind of what you’ll hear from Minihane. And listeners get it, it’s your show.
A lot of what goes on during the podcast is or presumably is schtick.
The Abdicated King of All Media
Minihane admits that his show is heavily influenced by Howard Stern, not the current ultra-PC Stern on satellite radio, but when the shock jerk was still relevant in the 1990s on terrestrial radio and encouraged a lot of infighting among the studio entourage and the so-called wack pack. Minihane has created his own, Stern-like “world” in that context.
Howie Hamptons, as he is now derisively known, went from mocking the celebrities on the red carpet to walking the red carpet, plus fawning over them on his show.
As an aside, zero-show-prep Stern makes millions from SiriusXM for working three mornings a week excluding Memorial Day through Labor Day, plus vacations, as listenship spirals downward to insignificance.
To say he’s mailing it in would be an insult to the postal service and any of its customers.
In fact, for the first time in years, Stern recently made news with a Tom Brady interview and later turning on his former friend Donald Trump (how edgy).
Monique and the Radio Gunk crew have an encyclopedic knowledge of how far Howard Stern, who Monique describes as a latter day Howard Hughes, has fallen.
To learn more, listen to the Radio Gunk podcast, which is also available on YouTube.
The Kirk Minihane Experience
In a February 23, 2020 article on WTBU, writer Chad Jones wrote the following:
“Kirk can be himself at Barstool, and his incredibly passionate fan base cannot get enough. Kirk’s fans are proudly titled ‘Minifans.’ They run countless show-related parody accounts on Twitter. There is a podcast dedicated to discussing Kirk and his show. There is a YouTube program, hosted by Blind Mike, where fans can come on and examine everything happening in the Minifan Universe. Not to mention, their contributions often become show content. Fan-made parody songs are occasionally played on the podcast.”
In addition to Minifans, the Kirk Minihane world or universe also includes Mincels, Minterns, and others who can found doing their thing on the YouTube as well as on Discord and Reddit. There is the also DEC’s week in review podcast.
The Kirk Minihane Show is at its very best when the host is exposing the hypocrisy of the virtue-signaling, liberal media blue-check brigade (Minihane claims to be a libertarian who somehow voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016) or corrupt politicians — when dishing dirt on WEEI, and/or discussing “palace intrigue” at Barstool Sports (such as the current dispute with “Call Her Daddy” girls), or when playing listener-created parody songs.
This may be function of demographics or whether a listener came in via the WEEI lane or the after-WEEI lane (i.e., an OG vs. a non-OG), but using up bandwidth to obsess about what the fanbase is doing or saying is far less interesting. That is, the podcast-about-a-podcast elements.
Fortunately, Robinson timestamps each podcast so a listener can skip through the excessive naval-gazing segments.
Recently, Minihane began taking phone calls from listeners who supposedly “hate” the show or have grown to hate the show. Most of the conversations were lame and unfocused. Fortunately no one said “longtime listener, first-time caller.”
It didn’t help that Minihane talked over them before the could fully express themselves or render constructive criticism.
It will be an interesting test case as to whether a podcast host can ignore input from a subdivision of its followers and still achieve long-term success.
All that on the table, this post is about actually the supporting cast, who from time to time, can chime with some perceptive insights.
The Human Laugh Track
In no more than the first 10 seconds of when the podcast starts, you’ll unfortunately hear Blind Mike laughing at what Minihane says.
In fact, he laughs at everything that comes out of Minihane’s mouth.
It’s runs the gamut from the COPD-intake, to ha-ha-ha-ha-ha to he-he-he-he-he, plus other variations.
The laugh track, which perhaps is a form of insecurity, adds nothing to the show, and at times makes it a tough listen.
Mike, if you’re reading this, reasonable people have concluded that the laughter is fake. The Kirk Minihane Show is not a sitcom.
It’s not impressive, even if you are trying to play a character for show purposes.
You’re good guy, but you’re trying way to hard, and this is could be one of the reasons that Barstool Hq. has a low opinion of you. The would-be court jest routine is really weak.
With that in mind, here are some friendly recommendations:
- Please stop the submissive fake laughing. You can continue to be a full, credible participant in the show without the fake laughing. Kirk’s art should speak for itself without punctuating his every sentence with fake laughter.
- When hosting Mike and the Minifans, give the guests a chance to talk without interrupting. A cardinal rule of hosting is to never derail the conversation when a guest is going off on a good rant. And in case, you’re insecure about being overshadowed, interesting guests actually reflect well on the host.
- Muster up enough self-confidence to disagree with Kirk occasionally. It makes for a better and more real show.
- It wouldn’t hurt to brush up on current events just a bit more so that Steve doesn’t have to school you so much
- Speak in a normal tone rather than the grating, pseudo standup-comedy voice
- Unless there is a leak in the rook, what’s up with wearing a hat everyday?
- Laughing is good for the soul, as long as at it’s real rather than based on intimidation, So, in case you missed it, please stop the fake laughing. Not everything Kirk says is a joke, and not every joke is actually that funny. Why not experiment with dialing back the soundtrack?
- Stunts such as confronting Red Sox exec Sam Kennedy or showing up at he WEEI show remote were great. If Barstool will let you (big if, apparently), why not do more of that?
Big Steve Sometimes Comes Up Small
Steve Robinson is supposedly the highest-paid producer under the Barstool umbrella.
He’s may also be the hardest working man in podcasting.
In addition to orchestrating the production aspects of the show, essential worker Robinson handles all the administrative, behind-the-scenes issues and responsibilities of the podcast (that Minihane seems to be hostile to promoting the show more presumably is a source of frustration to Steve).
All that said, Steve often comes across as a visitor to the year 2020 who time-traveled from the 19th century. Regular listeners understand what this means.
Steve, in case you are reading, here are a few equally friendly recommendations:
- Minihane has made you a rhetorical punching bag (Baba Booey 2.0) on many occasions, although it seems to be toned down lately. It was almost like you became an abused workplace “spouse.” No doubt much of this is schtick, as previously mentioned, but you have to stand up for yourself. Be a man.
- Some time back, Kirk suspended you for a few days for the minor transgression of deleting some sound from an archived show about your family. You acted like a wimp through the entire discussion. It was embarrassing; you need to respond forcefully, especially since Kirk seems to take the position that ridiculing his studio team’s family is fair game but, for example, his wife is off limits.
- You and Mike get a share of the show’s revenue, so maybe you consider hanging in is worth it, and the ridicule is the cost of doing business. What about self respect?
- For someone who owes his career to “right-wing radio,” you seem to be condescendingly painting all of right-wing radio (or all “conservatives”) with a broad, negative brush. Are you auditioning for a gig on MSNBC or CNN as one of the approved Republicans or just trying to pander to Kirk?
- When a political topic comes up, give the audience a little credit. It’s unnecessary to Stevesplain each issue in a long discourse.
- Howie Carr pulled you out of obscurity and essentially made your career. Yet when Kirk ridicules Howie (and again, this may be schtick), you go silent. Bruised feelings are common between employer and employee especially in a separation and/or when unfairness is in play, but don’t you think you owe Howie Carr some level of loyalty or backing? BTW, did you really ghost-write Howie’s books?
- The other day when Minihane quipped”I’m too nice,” you immediately chimed in with “you are.” Really, Steve?
- When you drop F-bombs to keep up with Kirk, it’s unauthentic. Your credibility is not enhanced by profanity. Did you miss sitting at the cool kids’ table in the high school cafeteria?
- Why not disagree with Kirk from time to time? And try to get off the fake-laughing bandwagon.
- Incidentally, do you still think that the coronavirus will kill 12 million people?
- Was it really necessary to ask Kirk’s permission to kill a fly in the studio?
Employees in every industry have to make compromises to fit with an organization and get along with a boss. But even with that said, here’s the bottom line for both: Be more self-aware and less subservient. The content will benefit, and it’s all about the content.
[This post will probably be updated, so watch this space.]