Wolf and Monty: Talking Podcasts and Radio

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Part of the journey of getting older is the connection we have to places and people from our past. This episode I invite you to join me as I reconnect with my old radio partner, and fellow podcaster, Jeff Alan Wolf.
Picture this: It's the 90s in South Florida, a time when local talk radio was the heartbeat of community conversation. We were right in the thick of it, riding the waves of unpredictability, enjoying the excitement of our live radio talk show until it ended unceremoniously during a July 4th weekend. Join us as we share personal tales from this vibrant era, recounting encounters with controversial personalities like Steve Kane, and exploring the industry's shift towards shock value—a route we consciously steered clear of. Through our stories, we weave in our broader reflections on the media landscape past and present.

Now, as we embark on our new adventure from the sunny realms of Florida and Arizona, the excitement of podcasting beckons. With a blend of humor and nostalgia, we say a fond farewell to our radio chapter while embracing this fresh start. Who knows where this uncharted path will lead us, but we're ready to explore it with optimism and camaraderie. Come along for the ride as we fuse the past's charm with the future's promise, sharing insights and laughter along the way.
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Check out A World Gone Mad with Jeff Alan Wolf
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
On this episode of Bill Monty's Guide for Getting
Older.
I have my friend Jeff Wolf here.
Jeff has a great podcast calledA World Gone Mad.
It's a political podcast and Iinvite you to look that up
anytime that you possibly can.
Jeff and I go back so manyyears that we actually used to
ride dinosaurs to work, but no,seriously, we, we did radio

(00:33):
together.
Jeff was already a radiobroadcaster and we met in the
mid 90s.
Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
we met.
I was doing auditions for soundinternational, okay, and I
needed someone to lip sync.
Uh, that were in other, ormovies in other languages
Italian, spanish and I met youthat way.
Right, you came in and did anaudition, then we found out that
you were doing the show that mygirlfriend Lori was in.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, that's right If that's wrong, then whatever.
So yeah, so this is near theend of local talk radio.
South Florida radio was hugeback then.
Talk radio there was, I know,outside the South Florida market
names aren't really that bigbut Neil Rogers, steve Cain
entire stations were developedto have nothing but talk local

(01:20):
talk radio.
This was before you had RushLimbaugh's and everyone else
that was syndicated comingthrough.
We kind of came in at the tailend of that whole thing.
Our timing has always beenperfect.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Just a little clarification.
You joined me at a tail end.
I was still doing stuff earlierwith a talk show yes, about six
months to two years before, andthen at night, overnight.
But as far as doing a team-up,it was towards the tail end,
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, so we ended up doing overnight at this one
station.
Then we did the morningsmorning drive for a while.
Then one day we werecelebrating our success In radio
you wait to turn the corner andwe had turned the corner like
the first corner it wasn't a bigcorner, but it was a corner and
we were out celebrating at oneof our sponsors, a restaurant,

(02:08):
and you got a call from thestation manager saying this is a
July 4th weekend.
I remember Monday morning we'regoing to become a Caribbean
station and we don't need yourshow anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
You were actually at the Italian restaurant with
about 10 people that you invitedand I was elsewhere.
I called you up and I saidhow's it going?
In the name of the greatrestaurant, the husband and wife
work 90 hours a week Was itlike three brothers or something
like that.
No three amigos something likethat.

(02:39):
I should remember, because wewould eat there twice a week,
lori and I.
I called you up and I said Icall you up.
And I said where are you at?
You said I'm at the table andyou know they're very nice to me
and I said well, uh, don'tspend a lot because we don't
have a show.
Yeah, and it was like what theright?
So, yeah, a radio is fun itended that.

(02:59):
It ended that fast yeah yeahand that was that was what was
that 1999 or 2000 when?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
when was that?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
something like that.
And someone once told me though, um, and I forget who she was,
either a weather person, no, I'msorry, she was a news anchor
for winz or somewhere like that,or iod, and she said once
you're in radio, you'll alwaysbe in radio, because it's that
type of industry.
Well, not, apparently in SouthFlorida around that time.

(03:27):
Yeah, because it.
It just became into uh, steveCain's uh hate wars were
argumentation and cross arguingbetween hosts was what they
thought.
Mock, mock controversy.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Mock controversy is exactly right.
That's what was huge.
That was 1999.
It's 25 years later and Wolfand Monty are on the air again.
I got to go.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Sorry.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
I just got a call that we were canceled.
I wish we could get word to ourlistener that we're back on the
air.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Hey, just a quick interjection on a story you'd
get a kick out of.
You may have heard this beforefrom me, but when I was working,
when steve kane took over uh,wftl, yeah, and brought in his
group of mock contours, craigworthing, al rantel, um, norm
kent, and I would fill in fornorm kent, I would fill in for
al rantel.
He called me the last minute,said jeff, can you do?
Yeah, right around the corner,steve calls me into his show on
the air what he was doing in themorning and he basically looks
at the phone lines and he's on abreak and he says watch this,

(04:37):
watch the phone lines, and I'llclean it up.
He said basically those blackpeople, those Italian people,
those Jewish people, but, usingthe derogatory slang, phone
lines lit up left and right,left and right, left, right.
Then he goes to a break and heturns to me that's how you get
calls.
And I said I don't need to dothat to generate calls.

(04:59):
That's not really working.
I said you have more money thanme, but I have integrity and I
just didn't want to do that typeof radio same, same integrity
to Steve Cain would be likeshowing a cross to a vampire, I
would think.
And that was his attitude.
You and I talked about thiswith Howard Stern.
Admire Howard Stern foreverything he's done, every

(05:21):
money.
You know.
Remember the joke in the moviePrivate Parts or whatever it's
called Private Parts?
Yeah, and he's reading the callletters and I'm making up the
callers.
And he's reading the callletters and I'm making up the
callers, w-i-n-z.
And the salesperson who goescan you read it a little bit
younger?
W-i-o-d.
And he reads it the same exactway and the guy goes that's

(05:41):
exactly right, that's what Ineed, it's all bs.
Yeah, the controversy, the mock, the integrity's gone out the
window.
Hence fox entertainment.
Right, fox news is not a newsstation it was a very different
world back then.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
We think about, in the 25 years since we were doing
that, where the world haschanged.
And now here we are and we bothbasically do radio shows, but
we do it through this, uh medianow called podcasting correct.
A years ago you were actuallydoing online radio, yes, so you
were doing kind of liberal talkright.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well, I tried to get hooked up with the station in.
I keep saying Florida becauseI'm from Florida.
When we moved from Florida andI moved here to Arizona, I said
let me go to the largest talkstation here.
Unfortunately, it was allconservative Republicans.
Put in my resume which Ithought you know, I'm not Steve

(06:36):
Cain, I'm not, you know, craigWorthing, I'm not all these, but
I think I do a damn good stuffand everything I've done with my
background Put in the resume.
Well, we really really can'tuse you and we'll call you kid.
You know one of those things.
So I built a station in my house.
One of the bedrooms did onlineand unfortunately, the online
station that I did was one ofthe stations was liberal.

(06:59):
Second station was allRepublicans.
Third station I got lucky Ifollowed Tom Hartman.
So Tom Hartman had his show inthe mid-morning and I followed
after him and that went verywell.
But yeah, it's a wholedifferent generation.

(07:21):
So I did the terrestrial radio,so to speak, from the house,
but it wasn't podcasting and, asyou and I have found,
podcasting is completelydifferent.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Completely different animal.
So one of the things is we knowfrom looking at all the
statistics that we do olderpeople not like you and me, like
we're a couple of young kids,but older people generally, 55
and up, really don't consumepodcasts in the way that other
demographics do.
At least that's what everyonewould have you believe.
And yet what would you say?

(07:52):
Your average?
Are you looking at things likeage, demographic for your
audience?

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, and I found it.
And it's a good thing youbrought that up right now,
because recently I found on thelatest stats I'm skewing 55 and
older for the majority of mylisteners, but I'm also getting
25 to 35s, which is okay, Iguess, Mr Podcasters and except
for the recent photo I put up onmy logo, nobody really knew how

(08:19):
old I was.
I don't say it on the air, Idon't give a birth date.
It's not an ego thing.
If my face is there, they go oh, I like him, I like his face,
or I don't like him, I don'tlike his face.
So I try to keep it generic.
It doesn't matter how old I amor what it looked like.
Listen to the message.
So I'm finding, yes, the olderpeople are gravitating, but I'm

(08:43):
getting a mix.
But what's interesting is, youknow, because you've tried to
explain podcasting to peopleolder, they still don't
understand what podcasting is.
They text and say when are youon the air live so I can catch
your show?
And I tell them we're recordedand you could listen at any time
, whenever you want to listen,and it's still not sinking in.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
It's not radio.
It is kind of like you can finda podcast for whatever your
interest is.
So if your interest is growing,radishes, whatever it is,
plumbing, fixing car engines,just like going to a library and
let's say you like murdermysteries, well you could start
on one shelf and work your wayaround the other way, the
bookcase and everything, thelibrary and find all of these
books.
And one of the things that Iknow I come up against I don't

(09:29):
know if you do is you know wekind of worry about well, what
time do I release my podcast inorder to get the most listeners
on that day?
But the thing about podcasts ispeople are listening whenever
they want they, they.
You know we can release it at 2am On Tuesday, or, like my tales
from South Florida releases onWednesday at 5 am, but I find I
get most of my listeners thefollowing weekend.
The three days later is when Isee my numbers start going up on

(09:53):
Tales from South Florida, andthen it just it's funny because,
coming from the radiobackground, I have a hard time
wrapping my head around.
What I know is the truth ofpodcasting, which is I want it
to be like a TV show.
So if you're like in CIS itcomes on at nine o'clock on
Mondays and you're going to bethere, but the new world is
actually.

(10:13):
You can stream it on ParamountPlus and see it anytime you want
.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, and the interesting thing you brought
this up, I did a and I know youdid the same thing.
I tried to explain in a voice,a voice piece on my Facebook
group what podcasting was, andin a brief segment.
I'm not going to go forever.
Brief segment was when we had aradio show.
Let's say Bill and I were on ateight in the morning.
There were five or six otherstations, seven stations on at

(10:38):
eight or nine in the morning.
Howard Stern doesn't mean wewere competing with him, it was
just another choice Sports, youknow there was a Spanish station
and there was a religiousstation depending.
So everyone knew Wolf and Montywould be on in the morning
Monday through Friday, whatever.

(10:58):
You had a set time.
So you captured the audienceand I guess that's good in some
ways and bad in some ways.
With podcasting, like you said,everyone tells you you need to
release at 12, midnight, 1, 5.30.
So people are starting theirday, they can download you and
have you while they're drivingto work and listen to you or
while they're doing thehousework, et cetera.
But it's that open-endedwhatever.

(11:19):
And also there's hundreds ofthousands of podcasts, not just
the radish podcasts but thebeats and the rutabaga.
There's so much stuff literally440,000 active podcasts yeah,
and it's hard to break free fromthe noise.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
So real fast because I, I think our, I think our
recording is going to end and Ijust want to say a world gone
mad.
Podcast, jeff Allen Wolf.
If you fear our future, if acertain orange haired buffoon
becomes president, you need tobe listening to this podcast.
Bill Monty's guide for gettingolder.
It's not about being old, it'sabout the journey of getting

(11:53):
older, which we are all doingevery single day.
And tell us, from South Florida, where I'm recounting, the
history, the adventures, thepeople, the places that made and
make South Florida anincredible place to live.
These can be found on Spotify.
They can be found on Amazon,apple.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Listen to one episode , people, and I think you'll be
hooked on Bill's shows.
I know I am, and good friends,but listen to one episode.
Give us a try, one episode andI guarantee you'll have fun.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, you will.
All right, that's Podcasting101, Wolf and Monty back on the
air.
Who knows, we might do thisagain sometime, if this episode
ever sees the light of day.
And we're going to say farethee well.
Right now from Florida andArizona two states that end in A
.
Hello, hello, cheerio, justbecause I don't want to go, and

(12:43):
we will hook up after thisrecording ends.
All right, sounds good.
All right, sir.
Everyone be safe and be kind.
How do you turn it off?

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Stop playing with it, oh my Welcome to Bill Monty's
Guide for Getting Older.