Speaker 1: Kaboom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
Speaker 1: week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of
Speaker 1: the old republic a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
Speaker 1: crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich
Speaker 1: pill poppers in the penthouse. The Clearinghouse of Hot takes
Speaker 1: break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben
Speaker 1: Maller starts right now in the air everywhere, and a
Speaker 1: happy Friday to you. Another fresh edition piping Hot out
Speaker 1: of the Oven, definitely being recorded for Posterity's sake. The
Speaker 1: Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard and Dandy G Radio. It's
Speaker 1: been a long week here, Danny, a long week, and
Speaker 1: uh just had a major podcast blooper that unfortunately nobody heard. Danny.
Speaker 1: I think that's the first time that's ever happened to
Speaker 1: us doing this podcast. Yeah, I'm a I'm a little
Speaker 1: sluggish at this point in the in the week. I
Speaker 1: don't know up from down. It's bizarro. It is Benny's
Speaker 1: bizarro world. And I am such a radio loser. But
Speaker 1: that's no excuse, Danny, that's no excuse. The number one rule,
Speaker 1: and you know you taught me this, Danny. Make sure
Speaker 1: the mic is on make sure people can hear what
Speaker 1: you're saying. I'm actually on the live are We started
Speaker 1: this Friday morning podcast twenty minutes ago, and twenty minutes
Speaker 1: in I told Ben, Hey, Ben, I don't see the
Speaker 1: recording thing up in the corner of the top screen.
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, we shock again. So what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? Danny? Come on knocking, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you you missed the best twenty
Speaker 1: minutes that Ben Maller has ever recorded in podcast history,
Speaker 1: and now Ben's gonna have to recreate the first twenty minute? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how can we possibly that? So anyway, let me just
Speaker 1: explain real quick. I'll give you the I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: give you the extended dance remix because I already did
Speaker 1: that and nobody heard it other than Danny g But
Speaker 1: I think Danny, you give me an a for that
Speaker 1: right the first If this was live on the air,
Speaker 1: you would have had tweets give you an a for
Speaker 1: the monologue. It was wonderful anyway. Instead, Uh, it was
Speaker 1: that's what we got there, and then we in in
Speaker 1: the back of the room over there, it's yeah, I
Speaker 1: got you all right. So the way this will work
Speaker 1: on this. The Friday podcast, which is actually now being recorded,
Speaker 1: we will have the first part of a two part
Speaker 1: Mallard mini series. It's the Mallard road Trip travelog. I'm
Speaker 1: in command with enhanced interrogation by Danny g radio the
Speaker 1: microphone throttler. Now, the reason I am doing this, Danny,
Speaker 1: is because I have been pestered in a kind way.
Speaker 1: People were not mean or anything like that, but I
Speaker 1: got a number of messages on the different social media
Speaker 1: platforms and email saying, hey, I really want to hear
Speaker 1: how this went. People very proud of where they're from, Danny.
Speaker 1: People from Wisconsin wanted to hear out when of Chicago,
Speaker 1: all the places I visit, and so I figured, rather
Speaker 1: than do this on the radio show, we don't have
Speaker 1: as much time. There's a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1: We pretty much kind of react to the sports news
Speaker 1: the day on the radio show. The podcast. Boy, that
Speaker 1: is right in the wheelhouse of the podcast. Some would
Speaker 1: say it's all right, but I disagreed, Dany. I disagree
Speaker 1: with that take. No, I want to know what happened
Speaker 1: on your trip because I saw pictures here and there.
Speaker 1: You left a little messages about where you were and
Speaker 1: who you were gonna see. But we didn't get any
Speaker 1: full details or stories about what went on. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we'll start out like all things. It started out innocent enough.
Speaker 1: Had this trip planned for a while. It was all
Speaker 1: because of a heading. My sister in law was getting
Speaker 1: married in in North Carolina, and we really don't know
Speaker 1: anyone in North Carolina. It's a long way to go,
Speaker 1: and me and the wife, the family, we determined that
Speaker 1: we needed to enhance the trip, and we figured why not.
Speaker 1: It's a long way to go, why not to stop
Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle. My brother had moved to Appleton,
Speaker 1: Wisconsin years ago. I had not seen him. We had
Speaker 1: a pandemic and all that. So we made a determination
Speaker 1: to make it a little bit of longer trip and
Speaker 1: go to visit some relatives I have in Chicago and
Speaker 1: in in Apple and so boom, we we pulled it off. Now,
Speaker 1: I did not book the trip, but we started out
Speaker 1: flying to Chicago on Saturday. As I said, mostly to
Speaker 1: say a couple of dollars. It's not easy to get
Speaker 1: to Green Bay. It's wild going. I've never been to
Speaker 1: Green Bay before. We'll get to that in a minute,
Speaker 1: but it's wild going to Green Bay and thinking in
Speaker 1: an NFL team plays in green Bay compared to some
Speaker 1: of the other cities I've been to the have NFL teams.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a crazy, crazy experience. I had menter
Speaker 1: chicagoan all the time, all that blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So we took the first flight out on on Saturday,
Speaker 1: and as I might or might not have said in
Speaker 1: a previous conversation to you, it's very important to take
Speaker 1: the first flight out when you're on the West Coast
Speaker 1: because of the time difference, Whereas if you're on the
Speaker 1: East coast it doesn't matter as much. You can take
Speaker 1: a late afternoon flight because you make up the time
Speaker 1: on the on the trip back, all right. So that's
Speaker 1: what we uh. And the first flight out of so Cow,
Speaker 1: which was a good idea. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: in theory that seemed like a good idea, but in
Speaker 1: execution it was not. I could not go to sleep.
Speaker 1: My body clock still on the overnight schedule from doing
Speaker 1: the show all week, so I ended up going to
Speaker 1: bed on Friday night and Saturday about two thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning, woke up at four am and had a
Speaker 1: rush to get to the car service to get to
Speaker 1: the airport. But I I did not have to wear
Speaker 1: a mask on the plane. Now, the car service they
Speaker 1: packed us all in like studies. They did not have
Speaker 1: room for the luggage, so that became a nightmare. It
Speaker 1: was a sedan, but it did not have enough space
Speaker 1: in it. Anyway. I got to to the winning City
Speaker 1: on on Saturday and I started snapping some photos. I said,
Speaker 1: wall no, let me do a little photographing thing. And
Speaker 1: I got this perfect photo when I got out of
Speaker 1: the planet, Old Hair, that weird looking mayor of Chicago,
Speaker 1: that creepy mayor of Chicago. She was like right behind
Speaker 1: me in the photo. I thought, that's perfect, that's a
Speaker 1: good omen. So I I took that photo and I
Speaker 1: posted this and I'm here and all that stuff. I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep on the plane, which I never can and uh,
Speaker 1: and got to Old Hair and it's a massive airport.
Speaker 1: Touchdown in your mouth considering how big it is, it's
Speaker 1: just so much smoother than L A X. But pretty
Speaker 1: much any airt I've ever been to has been better
Speaker 1: than L A X. And so they I took this
Speaker 1: tram thing that wraps around to the rental car facility
Speaker 1: and we got there and it was empty the pockets.
Speaker 1: It was a ch change cha ching cha, ching to
Speaker 1: ching stick it up. It was the first of many
Speaker 1: hold ups while you were in Yes, Yes, I was
Speaker 1: burglarized when I first got to the rental car desk.
Speaker 1: And I will not name the rental car company, as
Speaker 1: you know, Danny, we do not name names here, but
Speaker 1: I will tell you that it definitely hurts a lot.
Speaker 1: It hurts my wallet a lot what happened there at
Speaker 1: the rental car facility. And they were all kinds of
Speaker 1: charges that I was like, what is that? Like what
Speaker 1: why are we paying that? And I ended up breaking
Speaker 1: a cardinal rule. And I've actually told this story before.
Speaker 1: You were probably on the podcast with with Guests Come,
Speaker 1: but I talked about it for years. I learned from
Speaker 1: a sports writer, old baseball writer. The key to travel
Speaker 1: when travel on your own. A lot of baseball writers
Speaker 1: do that I don't know own and they don't travel
Speaker 1: with the team. Is you end up having to leave
Speaker 1: the airport and rent the car outside of the airport
Speaker 1: grounds because that's where they stick it to you. With
Speaker 1: all the extra fees and the taxes to pay for
Speaker 1: the stadiums and all the hidden costs they get. They
Speaker 1: love politicians to get the out of towners to spend
Speaker 1: a bunch of money and end up paying for the
Speaker 1: stadiums and all that. So I by violated that role.
Speaker 1: It was insane and all that. How much money. But
Speaker 1: we we then tried to grab some food on the
Speaker 1: way to Wisconsin. We're gonna drive and visit my brother
Speaker 1: for a couple of days. And I was the driver
Speaker 1: and my wife was the navigator. Uh. And they actually
Speaker 1: charged in Illinois, they charged money to have my wife
Speaker 1: also be able to drive, even though I was gonna
Speaker 1: drive most of the time. However, in Virginia they said, oh, no,
Speaker 1: if you're married, it's no big deal. I was like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is that? I still can't figure that out. Uh,
Speaker 1: somebody along the way screwed me over. Anyway, So we
Speaker 1: went to this pizza place in this famous Chicago pizza place,
Speaker 1: lou mal Noddies, And we found a location, my wife
Speaker 1: did near the airport. But we got there and it
Speaker 1: was only a takeout spot. That's fertilizing. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: weren't really familiar with the neighborhood. It didn't look like
Speaker 1: the greatest neighborhood, considering there was a dollar store right
Speaker 1: across the street, which usually is a sign that's not
Speaker 1: a great neighborhood. Uh yeah, I know I'm stereotyping, but
Speaker 1: I I believe that. So anyway, right down the street
Speaker 1: from where I live, Like I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: love the dollar store, but generally I've never seen one
Speaker 1: in Beverly Hills. Have you ever seen a dollar store
Speaker 1: in Beverly Hills. Hey, man, you might not notice, but
Speaker 1: I'm black. I've never seen that. Anyways. Uh So we
Speaker 1: decided not to wait for the pizza because these deep
Speaker 1: dish pizzas take like thirty five already minute. So that
Speaker 1: was a that was a bummer. I feel like I
Speaker 1: might have mentioned this earlier Danny in a podcast that
Speaker 1: was not broadcast. But on my way to Chicago, I
Speaker 1: was reading my favorite tabloid, the Daily Mail out of London,
Speaker 1: and they had a big right up about all the
Speaker 1: crime in Chicago and how I's safe it was, and
Speaker 1: there was murders here, there and everywhere, and that it
Speaker 1: was spilling over from Traditionally, the South Side of Chicago
Speaker 1: has been where most of the crime is, but in
Speaker 1: the last year, it's moved to other parts of the city.
Speaker 1: And so usually when I've gone to Chicago in the
Speaker 1: pastor was I just avoid the south side, You're fine,
Speaker 1: But now like they were scaring everybody saying, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a nightmare, blah blah. But people getting carjacked
Speaker 1: on the north suburbs of Chicago where the rich people living.
Speaker 1: All this stuff so a little uh giter ish, But
Speaker 1: I felt I got when I was I was in
Speaker 1: Chicago along that first day, but I I just felt
Speaker 1: I was kind of like l A, like downtown l A.
Speaker 1: You gotta be on guard, you gotta be yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta be kind of looking around at all times. You
Speaker 1: gotta yeah, head on a swip. So that was mine.
Speaker 1: We didn't end up eating in Chicago. We just got
Speaker 1: on the road to try to visit my my brother
Speaker 1: in Appleton. We drove on Highway forty one, which is
Speaker 1: part of it is a toll road. Screw the politicians
Speaker 1: in Illinois, so right away they stick you on a
Speaker 1: toll road. So I'm driving to Wisconsin. First stop is Kenosha. No.
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize until later that that was where
Speaker 1: a lot of the chaos happened uh in the year right,
Speaker 1: the protest and the shooting that took place in Kenosha,
Speaker 1: And to me, I just wanted to bite the eat.
Speaker 1: And I was told by my my radio friend Bob
Speaker 1: Fesco to go to the Cheese Castle in Kenosha. He said,
Speaker 1: you gotta go to the Cheese Castle. I said, what's that?
Speaker 1: He said about it, just as as it is in
Speaker 1: the name, it's the cheesecap So so we we headed
Speaker 1: there and it was dip everything into cheese. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's got They just it's like a little market. It's
Speaker 1: shaped like a castle, and it did not disappoint. It
Speaker 1: is a cheese lover's Disneyland, Danny. Yeah. I mean there's
Speaker 1: a ton of I mean all kinds of different cheese.
Speaker 1: And this place was filled, even though it was just
Speaker 1: across the border and Kenosha. It was filled with cub
Speaker 1: things because the Cubs were playing the Brewers that night,
Speaker 1: and so a bunch of the Chicago wands were making
Speaker 1: the trip up to go see the brew Crew and
Speaker 1: the Cubbies. So all these guys are wanting around in
Speaker 1: Cub jerseys. And I had my first cheese curd in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin and some pretzel bites and it was amazing. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, man, it sounds like a heart attack waiting
Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, but you're gonna die anyway. It was
Speaker 1: wonderful and Wisconsin's my kind of food. A lot of cheeses,
Speaker 1: lot of unhealthy pretzels and the meats and whatnot. We
Speaker 1: we did the whole tour of the castle, the Cheese Castle,
Speaker 1: and I was gonna get back on the highway and said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's another thing I have to cross
Speaker 1: off my bucket list. Culver's. Have you ever eaten at
Speaker 1: the Culver's? No? Okay, So this is like a local.
Speaker 1: It's the Wisconsin version of In and Out, you know,
Speaker 1: the East Coast. They've got five guys West Coast in
Speaker 1: and Out in the burger Wars. It's Culver's in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: I've tweet about that place before, yeah, and I've heard
Speaker 1: about it, and I really wanted to eat there. And
Speaker 1: I figured, well, I don't know for sure that I'll
Speaker 1: be able to eat at one down the line. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize how many of these locations there were, And
Speaker 1: so we saw Culver's and immediately stopped. It was on
Speaker 1: my bucket list mission accomplished. The Kenosha location. Butter Burger, cheese,
Speaker 1: courage fries, hashtag Nirvana. Man was at a good burger.
Speaker 1: Man was that great? And so so then we we
Speaker 1: got back on the right. I keep. I had no sleep.
Speaker 1: We had none of us said sleep that were traveling.
Speaker 1: So we had a long drive up to Appleton Highway
Speaker 1: forty one. A few observations date, A few observations about
Speaker 1: the current state of the state of Wisconsin and my
Speaker 1: friends in the Cheese state. Uh. A very eclectic mix
Speaker 1: of signs. A lot of firework stores in Wisconsin selling
Speaker 1: fireworks up and down Highway forty one. There was a
Speaker 1: mix of sex shops and then right after there'd be
Speaker 1: a billboard for a sex shop the God Squad telling
Speaker 1: you if you go to the sex shop, you're going
Speaker 1: to burn in hell. So it was quite the mix there.
Speaker 1: And there was a few gambling places mixed in casinos
Speaker 1: and whatnot. So good America, every vice imaginable, a lot
Speaker 1: of random road I didn't notice a lot of road
Speaker 1: kill in the great state of Wisconsin. All kinds of
Speaker 1: critters and and things on the road. I drove by
Speaker 1: the Harley David headquarters. As you know, Danny the Harley
Speaker 1: Davidson motorcycle from Wisconsin from Milwaukee. Their headquarters are there,
Speaker 1: and a lot of barnes, a lot of farms, the
Speaker 1: food companies. You know that. I think it's called hair
Speaker 1: brow hairbrow? Is that it? Hairbow? Harbow? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: We drove by their big facility and uh and then
Speaker 1: boom on a ninety minute to sleep. We made the
Speaker 1: one eighty three mile drive from O'Hare to Appleton, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: And it was the Mallard brother reunion because my older
Speaker 1: brother had driven from New York City to meet my
Speaker 1: younger brother and me in Wisconsin. He got there before us,
Speaker 1: and we had not been together in almost five years.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's been that long. But we had
Speaker 1: the COVID excuse that no, when my brother wouldn't get together,
Speaker 1: my younger brother wouldn't get together with anybody. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of families have gone through what you're talking about, yea.
Speaker 1: So it was it was great to see everybody and
Speaker 1: catch up, and it was great to see pooh and
Speaker 1: hug and all that stuff. And we all grew up
Speaker 1: very close and now we live in every time zone
Speaker 1: outside the Mountain time zone, so it's all all over
Speaker 1: the country, and uh, yeah, that's a little odd. But
Speaker 1: my older brother and his wife a pretty good thing
Speaker 1: going to New York. They were like a marketing thing,
Speaker 1: and my my younger brother is kind of hangs out.
Speaker 1: He's got that going on. But I'm like the black
Speaker 1: sheep of the family because doing the overnight radio thing.
Speaker 1: So it was it was good. And I don't really
Speaker 1: have a lot in common like with my brothers other
Speaker 1: than the family bond, meaning that they're not really sports
Speaker 1: people and I'm not really into the stuff there, and
Speaker 1: but we we don't. We make it work. What's their
Speaker 1: biggest topic of conversation. Um, it's well, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: What were they talking about that I wasn't interested in.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of conversation about like random pop
Speaker 1: culture things, but stuff that I'm not. I'm into some
Speaker 1: pop culture, but they were like weird, weird things. A
Speaker 1: lot of computer stuff. They're both in the computers a
Speaker 1: lot video game stuff. I'm not really much into that,
Speaker 1: like not not the games I play, So that kind
Speaker 1: of Uh, there was a question I got asked a lot.
Speaker 1: What is there to do in Appleton? Wisconsin. And the
Speaker 1: answer is to word dandy, not much. Okay, that's the answer. Okay.
Speaker 1: The town rolls up at seven o'clock and I normally
Speaker 1: don't even get going until nine or ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 1: By then everything is closed up. I gotta tell Appleton's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful city. I totally understand why my brother
Speaker 1: lives there, other than the weather, which is terrible eleven
Speaker 1: months of the eleven months of the year. A lot
Speaker 1: of trees, a lot of really cool one plus year
Speaker 1: old buildings. The Fox River which lets out in Green Bay,
Speaker 1: runs through Appleton. And walked around this really old bridge
Speaker 1: that was built years ago that they had a nesting
Speaker 1: area for bald eagles. The bald eagles hang out in Appleton.
Speaker 1: They chill out there in at least in part of May,
Speaker 1: because they were hanging out and there were a lot
Speaker 1: of pelicans like stuff you don't expect to see. I
Speaker 1: didn't expect to see some weird seabirds in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: And a lot of references to Harry Houdini, Danny, a
Speaker 1: lot of references to the late Harry Douney has been
Speaker 1: who's been dead for almost a hundred years, but they
Speaker 1: still have a bunch of stuff. He died. I looked
Speaker 1: it up. He died in nineteen six. But he's still
Speaker 1: a big deal. So four more years away from the
Speaker 1: hundredth anniversary of the passage of Harry, but Harry Uddini.
Speaker 1: But it is impressive that his name is synonymous with magic,
Speaker 1: the Houdini act. Right you say that, people know what
Speaker 1: you mean. I didn't know he was from that area. Well,
Speaker 1: he wasn't born there. He spent four years and as
Speaker 1: his child there and as a performer, he always claimed
Speaker 1: he was from Appleton, Wisconsin or whatever reason. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. There must have been some ulterior motive there.
Speaker 1: But there's a museum for him. There was a plaza
Speaker 1: downtown Appleton name for him. It was cool. I like
Speaker 1: magic and all that, But for me, the highlight was
Speaker 1: the trip up the road thirty miles actually it's twenty
Speaker 1: eight miles from my brother's house. Lambo Field, frozen tundra. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there was way more things to do in
Speaker 1: Green Bay. Oh sure, yes. You get off at Lombardi Avenue.
Speaker 1: Lombardi Avenue and there's a strip of stores and they
Speaker 1: were just like regular kind of stories you'd see in
Speaker 1: the suburbs of any city. And then right right past
Speaker 1: that is this massive stadium, and right across the street
Speaker 1: there's houses. It felt like the old Wrigley Field or
Speaker 1: Finway Park, where there's houses right across the street. And
Speaker 1: we drove right in the parking lot at Lambeau drove
Speaker 1: around the There was a gift shop area part of
Speaker 1: the stadium you could walk through. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I did not buy a Packer hat though, Danny, because
Speaker 1: I'm not a Packer fan. I'm a Ram fan. However,
Speaker 1: I did buy a lambeau Field hat. I figured that
Speaker 1: was a compromise because I'm celebrating the stadium, not the team.
Speaker 1: What does the lambeau Field hat look like. It's just
Speaker 1: like a screen hat has got the Lambeau name on
Speaker 1: it and a little drawing and all that. But it
Speaker 1: was cool. I figured why not. People still would think
Speaker 1: you're a Packers fan if you had that, they can
Speaker 1: think whatever they want. They'll be wrong. I did see
Speaker 1: the memorial for Davante. Adams very upset that he left
Speaker 1: to go to Your Raiders, so they were very sad
Speaker 1: there that Davante has moved on. You can't telling me
Speaker 1: his life would be a lot different coming from Green
Speaker 1: Bay and going to Las Vegas. Oh, I know. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine going from from Lambeau to oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: going from a strip mall to a strip club? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh man, that the city. It was cool, It was neat.
Speaker 1: I watched a bunch of games the Packers have been
Speaker 1: in over the year's last twenty years with Farvan Rogers.
Speaker 1: They've been on national TVs so much in all those
Speaker 1: snow games. And it was called Venerable Pig Skin Shrine
Speaker 1: Sacred Land. And right across the street is a house
Speaker 1: with a playground in the front of the house. It
Speaker 1: was freaking, freaking crazy, but anyway, so the expedite the process.
Speaker 1: So I spent uh Saturday through Monday night with my brothers. Now,
Speaker 1: Monday afternoon, my older brothers started to ride back to
Speaker 1: New York City now that afternoon. This actually happened a
Speaker 1: couple of days before my schedule opened up. I decided
Speaker 1: to hold a last minute mallard meet and greet day
Speaker 1: more of a spur of the moment kind of improv thing.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to travel to Traverse City, Michigan on Monday,
Speaker 1: because I have a cousin that lives over in Michigan.
Speaker 1: She's getting older and I wanted to see her. I
Speaker 1: want to hang out with her and whatnot. But logistically
Speaker 1: she told me, she said, no, that's only a couple
Speaker 1: of hours from Apple. So I went on the computer
Speaker 1: and I looked up to travel itinerary. To go from
Speaker 1: where I was in Appleton to Traverse City. It would
Speaker 1: have taken fourteen hours. Wow, fourteen hours to travel there, goofed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seven hours each way, so seven hours there, seven hours back.
Speaker 1: So I did the cost benefit analysis and I said, well,
Speaker 1: there's twenty four hours in a day. You figure I
Speaker 1: don't sleep much, but I sleep about five of those hours.
Speaker 1: So if I sleep five hours and then I spend
Speaker 1: fourteen hours traveling, that only leaves five hours in the
Speaker 1: day to do everything else. And uh so I and
Speaker 1: you had to take a ferry across like Michigan. It
Speaker 1: was this whole big thing. So I decided since I
Speaker 1: had a little extra time, my brother was leaving, my
Speaker 1: younger brother was doing some stuff, so I had a
Speaker 1: mallard meat, very impulsive, and we had a number. I
Speaker 1: actually asked people on Facebook. I said do you want
Speaker 1: to have a meet and greet, you know, let me
Speaker 1: know if you're interested. R s v P. And knowing
Speaker 1: human nature, Danny I figured that even though so many
Speaker 1: people had said they were gonna go, that most people
Speaker 1: say something and then they don't actually follow. I had people.
Speaker 1: I had so many people from Minnesota. Oh, I'm so
Speaker 1: happy you're in the Midwest. I don't like Wisconsin, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go. And I had a guy from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Speaker 1: I love your show so much. I'm gonna drive boat
Speaker 1: uh and all these people, and you know, we had
Speaker 1: a good turn out, But the amount of people that
Speaker 1: said they were gonna be there and the amount of
Speaker 1: people that actually showed up much different. I am such
Speaker 1: a radio loser, much different. That always happens. And and
Speaker 1: this was the ultimate test because I've done these things
Speaker 1: in Seattle and Pittsburgh and in Boston multiple times in
Speaker 1: other places, and these are bigger places where there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people. This is off the beaten path, but
Speaker 1: a good time hanging out. And we had a good
Speaker 1: turn out considering the location. All that, and only on
Speaker 1: social media. Had some really cool people that showed up
Speaker 1: and hang out have a drink at oh Sarios the
Speaker 1: Latin fusion. Yeah, the Mexican restaurant. People were wondering, why
Speaker 1: the hell did you go to a Mexican restaurant in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah. Well the owners are actually
Speaker 1: friends of the family, so I had a had a
Speaker 1: hook up. If you just show up to a restaurant
Speaker 1: and say, I'm gonna have a ton of people there,
Speaker 1: sometimes they get alone and comfortable even though they want
Speaker 1: the business. They're like, I don't know, you know, these
Speaker 1: people are like cool. So I love learning about listeners
Speaker 1: the show and what makes them tick and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I was genuinely disappointed. I thought for sure that
Speaker 1: at least a couple of people from Minnesota that live
Speaker 1: on the border who had contacted me would make the
Speaker 1: drive over and and they all ended up flaking, And
Speaker 1: that was disappointing. Yeah, we did set right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I get it. I get it. And the thing about
Speaker 1: that I noticed was a bunch of people are like, hey,
Speaker 1: you should come to Nashville or come to Tampa, or like,
Speaker 1: if I'm in the backyard, They're like, okay, I'll see it.
Speaker 1: They I think they want me to just be a
Speaker 1: hobo and travel around to various cities. You could be
Speaker 1: like Brian No and just live in a different city
Speaker 1: every other week. Yeah, exactly. I just live out of
Speaker 1: a suitcase and just travel around and be a gypsy.
Speaker 1: I'll be the new Gypsy kick. Why not? Anyway, So
Speaker 1: I to the Mallard Meat and greet uh, and I
Speaker 1: was I was bummed out. There was a guy that
Speaker 1: said he lived in Appleton, Danny, and he listened to
Speaker 1: me when I did the Ben and Dave show back
Speaker 1: in the nineties, whoa long as time ago, And he
Speaker 1: said he was gonna come out and hang out, and
Speaker 1: he never did. He didn't show up. Unfortunate. I hope
Speaker 1: he's all right. But if you listen to that show,
Speaker 1: he must be an older gentleman. So how he probably
Speaker 1: has a motorized scooter. Anyway, So I went back to
Speaker 1: my brother's humble abode in Wisconsin. It is cool these
Speaker 1: houses with these basements. I love the basements. We don't
Speaker 1: have the basements in California because the earthquakes. But I
Speaker 1: went back, said our goodbyes, hugged it out, packed up
Speaker 1: the Mallard rental wagon, and headed south back down the
Speaker 1: almost two hundred miles to Chicago. Where did you stay
Speaker 1: when you were there? Oh, we were supposed to stay
Speaker 1: with my brother, but he claimed he didn't have space,
Speaker 1: and we had an airbnb in Appleton, which was cool.
Speaker 1: It was a fine little house and not that expensive
Speaker 1: being in Appleton, so it was very cost effective and
Speaker 1: all that. And so then we headed back to Chicago
Speaker 1: and my wife decided she wanted to treat herself to
Speaker 1: a nice hotel. Daddy, I don't need to stay in
Speaker 1: a nice hotel. I don't know about you. As long
Speaker 1: as I don't have bed, you know, beg bugs and
Speaker 1: fleas and all that, I don't need that. But just
Speaker 1: give me a decent hotel. I don't need a great hotel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I say, as long as it's clean, it's in a
Speaker 1: good location, and it's newer, it wasn't built in like
Speaker 1: the fifties and it's falling apart. Yeah, as long as
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get some kind of disease from
Speaker 1: laying on the bed, I'm okay with it. And I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get poisoned from the water or the air
Speaker 1: condition Anyway. She picked this place called the London House,
Speaker 1: which is prime Chicago real estate, right on Michigan Avenue
Speaker 1: at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Whacker Drive, which
Speaker 1: is the big streets there in Chicago. Amazing location, right
Speaker 1: in the belly of the Beast. So since I'm married
Speaker 1: to her, I was along for the ride at the
Speaker 1: London House and this time we we were successful at
Speaker 1: getting lou mal Noddies deep dish pizza. Walked around. It
Speaker 1: was freezing this entire time in milwauch in in a
Speaker 1: Appleton and in Chicago, just nasty weather. But I did
Speaker 1: get my birthday sunny Sunday. Danny. I know you very
Speaker 1: concerned about that be at your Your family has a
Speaker 1: restaurant there, Garratt Deli's Chocolate Shop, Danny garat Delli and
Speaker 1: it looks over the Chicago River. Beautiful location. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I went in there and had my favorite chocolate cookie
Speaker 1: Sunday and it was great, wonderful, love that thing. That's
Speaker 1: my go to Sunday. So this was by the time
Speaker 1: this happened, it was Tuesday. We got in Chicago like
Speaker 1: one in the morning on on Monday. So on Tuesday
Speaker 1: we had gotten tickets to the Cubs game at Wrigley
Speaker 1: against the White Sox. Now, I've not been to Wrigley
Speaker 1: Fields since they renovated it. Big props to my guy,
Speaker 1: Jonas Knox. Jonas is a made man or colleague morning
Speaker 1: guy at Fox pulls Ready. He's a made man in Chicago.
Speaker 1: So he he reached out to me when he heard
Speaker 1: I was going to Chicago. Says, hey, I got I
Speaker 1: got a couple of tickets. You want to go to
Speaker 1: the game. I said, yeah, give me a couple of days. Sure,
Speaker 1: And I love that. And they were bleacher tickets and
Speaker 1: so I got to sit in the bleachers at Wrigley Field.
Speaker 1: And but I looked at the forecast and it said
Speaker 1: it was rainy, It's gonna rain all night, very cold conditions.
Speaker 1: I said, there's no way they're playing this game. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen. In fact, I told I told the wife,
Speaker 1: I said, listen, don't worry about it. She was concerned
Speaker 1: about having to go to the cold weather. I said,
Speaker 1: don't worry. They're not gonna play it. And so, in
Speaker 1: classic Murphy's law of fashion, uh, they decide I will
Speaker 1: play the game. So so you froze your balls off.
Speaker 1: It was so bad. It was so bad. It was rain,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't like a hard rain. It was a light,
Speaker 1: misty rain like it was. It was the heavens just
Speaker 1: spitting lightly at you. And it was very cold, windy.
Speaker 1: The windshill said it was thirty degrees at Wrigley Field.
Speaker 1: And we were not prepared. We did not bring the
Speaker 1: the many things you need to sit in cold weather,
Speaker 1: the gloves, the hot packs, the all that. So we
Speaker 1: had none of that stuff there. And you know, but
Speaker 1: we were at the game and you're in Chicago, You're like,
Speaker 1: you know, why not and paid out of the out
Speaker 1: of you know what, out of the key store for
Speaker 1: parking because there's no parking lots around Wrigley Fields in
Speaker 1: the middle of the city. The Mallard calculator must have
Speaker 1: been going crazy. Oh my god. Yeah, So we just
Speaker 1: we drove the rental car over and I was like,
Speaker 1: let's let's just you know, pay for part or whatever.
Speaker 1: So eighty five dollars to park eighty five dollars. Mainly
Speaker 1: because my wife did not want to wait until the
Speaker 1: game was over. She was she she had a premonition
Speaker 1: that she probably wasn't gonna stay at the end of
Speaker 1: the game, and if you pay a lesser amount, you're
Speaker 1: boxed in. You can't get out anyway. So we we
Speaker 1: headed walked around Wrigley the Cubby Bear, the famous bar
Speaker 1: there which had been there forever. The late there was
Speaker 1: a late arriving crowd. People always say Dodger fans arrived late.
Speaker 1: It was a late arriving crowd because they're at the
Speaker 1: bars exactly. Everyone was sauced when they showed up. But
Speaker 1: Rigley had a much different vibe than I remember. I
Speaker 1: was there before they renovated it, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to say the charm was completely gone, but it was
Speaker 1: much different green one out it had. It felt like
Speaker 1: the the comp I would give it is like Disneyland
Speaker 1: if you went to Disneyland back in the old days,
Speaker 1: and then in Anaheim. And then they added that shopping
Speaker 1: across the street, you know where Disney Downtown Disney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the area around Wrigley Field felt like downtown Disney.
Speaker 1: And I know they're in business and it's the free market,
Speaker 1: and they bought a lot of the land around Wrigley
Speaker 1: Field and the corporate ties the Cubbies to monetize the
Speaker 1: tradition and it's progress, as they say, whoever they are.
Speaker 1: But man, it's it's like going to Disneyland. So it's
Speaker 1: somewhat turned into cubby Land. Yeah, yeah, it's it's It's
Speaker 1: Cubby Lane, is what it is. That's right. And they
Speaker 1: did a really nice job the way they renovated Wrigley.
Speaker 1: I thought they did a good job. It's a little
Speaker 1: too much for me because I remember the way used
Speaker 1: to be, but progress things changed. Anyway, my wife was
Speaker 1: so in so much agony from the cold weather. I
Speaker 1: think she was getting ready to divorce me from making
Speaker 1: her sit out there with the family. The wind, the
Speaker 1: rain and all that. And like I said, we were
Speaker 1: not ready. Didn't have gloves, didn't have scarfs. We did
Speaker 1: have parkers. We went on and bought some parks in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin because it was raining there too, But the problem
Speaker 1: was the bleachers were soaking wet from the rain, so
Speaker 1: we needed the parker is to sit on, so we couldn't.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a total crap show. And uh
Speaker 1: but but anyway, I had a chance to meet a
Speaker 1: legendary caller to the show phase from Chicago. I put
Speaker 1: out the message on Facebook. I said, anybody at the
Speaker 1: the ballpark if you're a fan of the show, I'd
Speaker 1: love to meet you. And Face said, I'll be there,
Speaker 1: and he was there, and he was a man of
Speaker 1: his word and he showed up and it was great.
Speaker 1: He also had a birthday, so we coordinated things. It
Speaker 1: was great to meet him and his I think his
Speaker 1: wife or soon to be wife. Very cool people. And
Speaker 1: she's a White Sox fan. He's a Cub fan and
Speaker 1: so hard worker, drives a truck. He's got some comption
Speaker 1: to him. I like people like that. And he called
Speaker 1: up with the famous Windy's joke that's right a while
Speaker 1: back there. So it was cool. I was like, people
Speaker 1: that work hard and all that. So, uh, working the
Speaker 1: third chef this is this is not for the faint
Speaker 1: of heart. So we did end up leaving the Cub
Speaker 1: White Sox game midway through. Otherwise I would be looking
Speaker 1: for a divorce lawyer. What was the score when you left? Uh?
Speaker 1: The White Sox were winning. I think it was like
Speaker 1: two nothing or three nothing at that point. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a high scoring game. Um. We headed over those two
Speaker 1: Pete Quads Pizza in Chicago, home of the pan style
Speaker 1: deep dish pete to caramelized crustating. Oh that sounds promising. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: this place came highly recommended to us by some locals
Speaker 1: and did not disappointed. Amazing pipe culinary arts. And so
Speaker 1: we ended up watching trying to we were trying to
Speaker 1: warm up. We watched the final few innings of the
Speaker 1: game as the massive pie cooked, and that's when the
Speaker 1: drama orama started. All right, So we leave the restaurant
Speaker 1: in Chicago. We had parked on the street. There's no
Speaker 1: parking lot for the restaurant, and we started walking to
Speaker 1: where we thought our car was, and it wasn't where
Speaker 1: we thought it was. It turned into a wild goose chase.
Speaker 1: Could not, for the life of me. Remember I wasn't drunk,
Speaker 1: mind you, we couldn't. We couldn't remember where the damp
Speaker 1: car was located. You just had frost bite. Oh it's tera.
Speaker 1: It was like a dude, where's my car? Remake? And
Speaker 1: we were literally figured till we spent forty minutes walking around.
Speaker 1: It's still raining. Mind in Chicago, it's still freezing and
Speaker 1: we're walking around there. I wondered if my car had
Speaker 1: been stolen, the rental car, and we're trying to retrace
Speaker 1: the steps and all that and I got some help
Speaker 1: from our from our buddy there. He was able to
Speaker 1: find the vehicle. However, we had killed so much time, Danny,
Speaker 1: that it was too late were I was playing going
Speaker 1: to visit my my cousin, but if she lives in
Speaker 1: the northern suburbs, and it was like an hour outside
Speaker 1: of where we were, and so this sucked. And uh
Speaker 1: so we went back to the hotel that admitted defeat
Speaker 1: for that day. Now did you just get turned around? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we a lot of the streets around I looked
Speaker 1: the same, and I didn't really. I tried to jot
Speaker 1: down and take a picture of the street sign, but
Speaker 1: I did remember the street, but I I it was
Speaker 1: like three streets over from where the car was. We
Speaker 1: were walking towards the restaurant. Anyway, it was. It was
Speaker 1: a second city. Whether got the best of us and
Speaker 1: all that all right, So really I have a lot
Speaker 1: of time. But the final full day in Chicago, which
Speaker 1: was last Wednesday, we packed a lot into our day.
Speaker 1: Started out on an architectural boat tour of the Windy City,
Speaker 1: which I highly recommend. Very cool if you're from out
Speaker 1: of Chicago or even in Chicago, hop on a boat
Speaker 1: ninety minutes, your cruise all over the Chicago River. Amazing
Speaker 1: skyscrapers in Chicago beautiful. I love the the concrete jungle
Speaker 1: and the thing I took away from that, Danny, And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use this on the show. The name Chicago,
Speaker 1: do you know what that stands for? No? Alright, so
Speaker 1: the origin according to the person on the boat, maybe
Speaker 1: they were lying. The word Chicago is a French version
Speaker 1: of the Miami, Illinois word Chicakawa, which means stinky onion.
Speaker 1: Chicago is named after garlic, a garlic plant, not an onion. Actually,
Speaker 1: the stinky onion is what Chicago is, right And anyway,
Speaker 1: another historic Chicago food stop we we headed after that,
Speaker 1: we we we went to Portillo's for some hot dogs,
Speaker 1: but to the Mallard building located in the Yeah, said Mallards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mallage in the Jewelry district, right near Millennium Park. You
Speaker 1: know that that big bean. Yes, yeah, it's right like
Speaker 1: a couple of blocks away from that. Uh. People have asked,
Speaker 1: does your family own the Mallard building? Not to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: if they do own it, they didn't tell me about it.
Speaker 1: But it was cool seeing seeing the my surname on
Speaker 1: the side of the building. It was pretty neat. And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know who it was named after. I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about it other than my name, family names
Speaker 1: on it, and I there's a couple of different families
Speaker 1: that have the same last name as I do, so
Speaker 1: who knows. And uh, my family was from Chicago. A
Speaker 1: lot of my my dad's side of the family from
Speaker 1: Chicago in the garment business. And in fact, my dad
Speaker 1: was the first of the family relatives to be born
Speaker 1: outside of Chicago. So yeah, our families have a lot
Speaker 1: in common. My mom was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. Oh cool.
Speaker 1: She was there until middle school before she went to
Speaker 1: San Jose, California. My dad was born in Chicago. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Yeah, my grandfather from Springfield, mass and my
Speaker 1: my other grandfather from Chicago. Our families almost mirror each other.
Speaker 1: Okay that it's a small world, after all, it's a
Speaker 1: small small world. We did spent a little time at
Speaker 1: the London House, went back there, hung out this nice
Speaker 1: rooftop restaurant which was pretty cool, very pricey, very expensive,
Speaker 1: out of my my vell of comfort, but a lot
Speaker 1: of great ambiance and all that. But but we then
Speaker 1: finally finally got to meet up with my cousin who
Speaker 1: I used to hang out with when she was a
Speaker 1: little girl and I was a little, little little kid.
Speaker 1: We were a little kids hanging out at bar Mitzvah's
Speaker 1: and weddings and family reunions and all that, and uh
Speaker 1: it was. She lives in Chicago, and I had lost
Speaker 1: contact with her for a number of years, but we
Speaker 1: reconnected a few years back and you got to meet
Speaker 1: her husband. Very cool kiddos hanging out at their house.
Speaker 1: There this guy Joel who claims, according to my cousin,
Speaker 1: Heidi listens to the podcast now, so we'll see if
Speaker 1: he's if he hears this, if he reaches out to me.
Speaker 1: But he's a typical Chicago sportsman. Loves the Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks,
Speaker 1: some of the Bulls, all that stuff, and no Bears.
Speaker 1: In fact, he told me he's hoping the Bears move
Speaker 1: out because the Bears. There's a rumor the Bears are
Speaker 1: gonna move out of Chicago proper and after the suburbs.
Speaker 1: If they do, it'll be right across in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: where my cousin lives. There's like a race track they're
Speaker 1: gonna build a football stadium their version of Santa Clara
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, but it was it was great to me,
Speaker 1: my my second cousins and uh, I got a cousin
Speaker 1: is going to be going to the University of Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Badger next year. The middle kid reminded me of me
Speaker 1: because he's in like baseball cars and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool and plays hockey baseball. And then they
Speaker 1: got a daughter that's a younger daughter is like in
Speaker 1: third grade. So but it was it was cool. I think, well,
Speaker 1: we were there, Danny, and this will be the intermission
Speaker 1: and you'll have to tune in tomorrow, same Mallard time,
Speaker 1: same Mallard channel for what happened with the wedding for
Speaker 1: the riveting conclusion of this two part mini series, The
Speaker 1: Mallard Mini Series. We've talked about Wisconsin in Illinois, but
Speaker 1: what about Virginia and North Carolina. Stay tuned, Dot dot
Speaker 1: Dot can't wait later. Skater gott a murder, Gotta go