Speaker 1: Kubbooms.
Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
Speaker 2: of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, the Clearinghouse of
Speaker 2: Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
Speaker 2: with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1: In the air eywhere for the final time in the
Speaker 1: month of October, the year twenty twenty five. It is
Speaker 1: I Ben Mahler. We have stumbled and bumbled our way
Speaker 1: inside the Fifth Hour Podcast Studio, the remote podcast studio,
Speaker 1: as we hang out here together enjoying the fun that
Speaker 1: is weekend podcasting. And today is a rather big day,
Speaker 1: as not only do you have that little Halloween thing,
Speaker 1: you got the little Halloween thing. And then tonight is
Speaker 1: this the last night of the Major League Baseball season?
Speaker 1: Developing Hot Dot Dot Dot the Dodgers and the Toronto
Speaker 1: Blue Jays. It is own like Donkey Kong from the
Speaker 1: stadium formerly known as SkyDome. You've got Yoshinobu Yamamoto for
Speaker 1: the Dodgers favorite the Dodgers are favored to force a
Speaker 1: Game seven in the World Series. They open up a
Speaker 1: minus one thirty five favorite. They are a little higher
Speaker 1: than that. And where is the money. It's it's Yoshinobu
Speaker 1: Yamato versus the Gossman, Kevin Gossman, the gas Man Gossman.
Speaker 1: That is the matchup at the building known now as
Speaker 1: the Rogers Center. And most of the cash, most of
Speaker 1: the cash is on the Dodgers. The tickets a little
Speaker 1: more split, although the Dodgers have the edge there. So
Speaker 1: that is the matchup tonight, and we will have a
Speaker 1: complete Malar monologue, win loser, draw. Of course there will
Speaker 1: be no draw, but we'll have that on the Saturday
Speaker 1: edition of the Fifth Hour. One of the as we
Speaker 1: said last week me and Danny g it's one of
Speaker 1: the blessings and the curses of doing a weekend podcast.
Speaker 1: You have a platform because that'll be old news. Whatever
Speaker 1: happens tonight will be old news by the time we
Speaker 1: get to the next Ben Mahler show. Not to get
Speaker 1: too inside radio, how we make the sausage. You do
Speaker 1: not want to know how we make the sausage. But
Speaker 1: as far as Halloween is concerned, which is the main
Speaker 1: event today, the World series. People will be out doing
Speaker 1: things and all that stuff. Every Halloween, I go down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole and I look back and say, well,
Speaker 1: where did this all begin? Like what is the origin
Speaker 1: of Halloween? Like how far back does it go? It's
Speaker 1: got pagan origins. We're reminded of that every time we
Speaker 1: look back at what happened. But really it's the se
Speaker 1: Eltse who we should thank for what Halloween is today.
Speaker 1: The ancient people now they live where modern day Ireland
Speaker 1: is in northern France, and the UK's Halloween pagan roots
Speaker 1: go back thousands of years to the Celtic fire festival.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's like the one they have in
Speaker 1: outside Vegas. Well, the fire festival, that's something else, that's
Speaker 1: the daisy something electric light thing. The fire festival was
Speaker 1: the one that was a total disaster and made a
Speaker 1: Netflix documentary back in the day. Anyway, So they recognized
Speaker 1: the end of the harvest season and the start of
Speaker 1: the new year on November first, and so they had
Speaker 1: this big festival. The pagans wore costumes and they lit fires,
Speaker 1: and they had to do that because they wanted to
Speaker 1: keep the bad spirits away. You do not want bad
Speaker 1: spirits to mess around with you. And so that was that,
Speaker 1: and they believed that on October thirty first, today the
Speaker 1: dead returned. The dead return to walk among the living.
Speaker 1: He's zombieish. Wouldn't that be amazing? Though? Imagine if all
Speaker 1: the people that have died like somehow came back and
Speaker 1: it would be like great to see them, But then
Speaker 1: they'd be like, well, what did you do to my sofa?
Speaker 1: You know, I was like my mom she came back
Speaker 1: and being then you messed up my kitchen. That's not
Speaker 1: my mom. You're not here, but I'm back. But I know,
Speaker 1: I I know. I'm glad you're back. But I didn't
Speaker 1: think you'd mind. You didn't think you were going to
Speaker 1: come back. I don't, I don't know. I mean, what
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? Uh? And all that
Speaker 1: and uh and so there you go. Yeah, anyway, moving
Speaker 1: on from that, let's get to the meat of the
Speaker 1: matter on this edition of the Fifth Hour podcast, and
Speaker 1: that would be I got two things for you, and
Speaker 1: then there's some other stuff. I got Benny the Butcher
Speaker 1: and chicken soup in a way. In a way, chicken soup,
Speaker 1: So let's start with this. First of all, again, Happy Halloween, Oh,
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween. So you reach a certain agent. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm at that age now. I would assume I'm at
Speaker 1: that age somewhere between. I still know the words to
Speaker 1: every Month to Oh Monsters. I know that. And then
Speaker 1: I look at the candy bowl and I think, boy,
Speaker 1: if I eat that, I'm going to gain all the
Speaker 1: weight I lost back, all of it. Just one bowl
Speaker 1: of delicious butterfinger and Baby Ruth and Snickers bars and
Speaker 1: three Musketeers and it's all gone. And then you start
Speaker 1: to think that the Halloween costume, that's a young person's game, right,
Speaker 1: You got to be a kid to be in a
Speaker 1: Halloween costume, unless, of course, the costume finds you. Welcome
Speaker 1: to my world. That's right, mine did right there, in
Speaker 1: of all places, the kitchen at the Malor Mansion. Right.
Speaker 1: Let me repeat that for the back of the room there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found my Halloween costume because it slammed me down
Speaker 1: in many ways. So I was not at spirit Halloween.
Speaker 1: I was not working my way through all the polyester
Speaker 1: cowboys and vampire capes and the natty nurses and all
Speaker 1: that other stuff. I didn't brave Target. My wife likes Target.
Speaker 1: I'm more of a costco guy. I would go to Walmart,
Speaker 1: the endless aisles of synthetic rubber masks and scary fangs
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be Dracula and all that stuff. So no,
Speaker 1: my costume was homemade. It was hand crafted, really hand cut,
Speaker 1: really hand cut, if you want to get precise, because
Speaker 1: on this particular Halloween week, I became Benny the Lime Cook. Now,
Speaker 1: I do like to make I eat one meal a day,
Speaker 1: and I try to eat a good meal and the
Speaker 1: hearty meal, and that gets me through the rest of
Speaker 1: the day. And I don't need to eat three meals.
Speaker 1: One meal, save a little bit of money, try not
Speaker 1: to get any weight. I have a meal, I have
Speaker 1: a snack bowl. That's it. Boom, done, done done. Usually
Speaker 1: eat within half an hour to forty minutes, and the
Speaker 1: rest of the day I don't eat. Well. It turns
Speaker 1: out that Bennie the line cook Moonlight It's got a
Speaker 1: second job, must have gone to Express Pros because I
Speaker 1: got a second job as Benny the Butcher. That's right.
Speaker 1: So let's go back a few days. The Life of Maler,
Speaker 1: the Life of Mouth, that lunch is a singular event.
Speaker 1: My wife goes to work, she's not home. I'm by myself.
Speaker 1: It's me and Moxie, and I usually put Moxie outside
Speaker 1: because if Moxie's inside while I'm eating, Moxie wants to
Speaker 1: join the meal. And normally what I'll do is, if
Speaker 1: I have leftovers, I will then toss them to Moxie
Speaker 1: as an active goodwill. As an active goodwill, so I
Speaker 1: used to eat just like really terrible food. I still
Speaker 1: eat bad food on the weekends, but during the week
Speaker 1: I try to eat somewhat healthy. So on this particular day,
Speaker 1: I had grilled chicken, I had on a spit, we
Speaker 1: had rice. I had rice because I say wee, but
Speaker 1: I had rice, pineapple, love pineapple, some diced onion, and
Speaker 1: some bell pepper. The kind of meal that if you
Speaker 1: had told me when I was twenty years old, I
Speaker 1: would be eating when I'm the age i'm at now.
Speaker 1: I just said, you're full of crap. And it's also
Speaker 1: the kind of meal I think that if you're a nutritionist,
Speaker 1: you would put that on the GRAM and get a
Speaker 1: lot of clout right, a clean fuel and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Put the eating healthy man look at me now, except
Speaker 1: my meal. Even though it sounded very healthy, it sounded
Speaker 1: very healthy, my meal was not clean false advertising. Now
Speaker 1: we could do a clash parody song, the meal fought
Speaker 1: back and the meal one, The meal fought back and
Speaker 1: the meal one. You see, I misjudged where my knife
Speaker 1: ended and the finger began, which is kind of similar
Speaker 1: to going to Arizona and misjudging where the cliff and
Speaker 1: and the grand Canyon begins. Hello, Hello, it doesn't end well. Now,
Speaker 1: if you ever have that split second where your brain
Speaker 1: lags behind. Have you ever had that? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about? You think that kind that felt kind
Speaker 1: of weird. It didn't feel like it was supposed to feel.
Speaker 1: So I'm cutting the onion and I had that brain
Speaker 1: lag where it's like, what's going on with that? That
Speaker 1: didn't feel quite right, and so I thought, well, it
Speaker 1: must be the onion. Maybe it was a bad onion.
Speaker 1: I didn't examine the onion. I cut the onion, so
Speaker 1: I picked the onion up. At this point, I now
Speaker 1: am inspector gadget. I should update that reference. I am
Speaker 1: imagine me in a lab code. I'm working on CSI right,
Speaker 1: it's better than Inspector Gadget, although I like Inspector Gadget
Speaker 1: more than CSI. And only at this point in the
Speaker 1: story did I notice in my peripheral vision these little
Speaker 1: red drips drip, drip, drip. Now, this is the part
Speaker 1: of the story that is not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1: It is not you see, at that moment, a simple
Speaker 1: chopping of the onion became a horror movie plot twist.
Speaker 1: It's not the onion's fault, it's not. There were no
Speaker 1: special effects. There was no current corn syrup or food
Speaker 1: dye or any of that, just my knuckle on my
Speaker 1: right hand auditioning for an upcoming Tarantino close up. Yes. So, now,
Speaker 1: later today, as the neighborhood kids parade around through their
Speaker 1: cute little costumes through the mean streets of the north Woods,
Speaker 1: dressed as princesses and pikachuw's and all the other stuff
Speaker 1: that I have no idea. Well, you go through the
Speaker 1: list of popular Halloween costumes and it's like, that's anime,
Speaker 1: that's anime, So what's anime? Just go with it, Just
Speaker 1: go with it. I'm old, I'm older than anime. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I didn't grow up with anime. I
Speaker 1: grew up with the Looney Tunes. Well that year old
Speaker 1: you don't know what, you don't know what these things
Speaker 1: are as a bad job by you. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: will be the gentleman who will be waving from the
Speaker 1: driveway as I walk out to the car with the
Speaker 1: I have the new skin, I have the gauze wrapped
Speaker 1: around the hand like a mummy mall or the Mummy.
Speaker 1: And of course I lost the instructural manual. So my
Speaker 1: homemade costume is called stylish Bloodshed, Benny's Stylish Bloodshed. The
Speaker 1: authenticity of this, I'm telling you, is undeniable. It is
Speaker 1: absolutely un deniable. I didn't even need a sewing machine.
Speaker 1: I didn't. My mom was an epic sewer back in
Speaker 1: the day. But I didn't need my mom's old sewing machine.
Speaker 1: Just a chef's knife and a little spatula awareness and
Speaker 1: that's it. So somewhere off in the wild blue yonder,
Speaker 1: way out there in the wild blue yonder, wes Craven smiling.
Speaker 1: It's got a Cheshire cat smile from ear to ear
Speaker 1: hearing the story. Now, had I sliced just a millimeter,
Speaker 1: just a a millimeter more, you and I would be
Speaker 1: having a much different conversation right now. Instead of talking
Speaker 1: about what did happen was I just went over there?
Speaker 1: We would be talking dismemberment instead of a chunk of
Speaker 1: my flesh on my knuckle, on my pointer finger going
Speaker 1: away from this thick laceration you see. I then if
Speaker 1: that had been a dismemberment, I would have been the
Speaker 1: star of my own low budget remake, The Big Lebowski two,
Speaker 1: starring Ben Maller. This time the dude loses a digit.
Speaker 1: Forget the the severed toe in the shoe box. What's
Speaker 1: in the box? Now my finger? And this is the
Speaker 1: part where Brad Pitt, who looks really weird in that mustache,
Speaker 1: I SunUp the Dodger gameless week. It's very weird. This
Speaker 1: is where Brad Pitt comes in screaming what's in the box.
Speaker 1: I'd also like to point out Brad Pitt if you
Speaker 1: ever saw me, he said, ooh, you got a body
Speaker 1: for overnight talk radio. That's right, Brad, I do, Daddy.
Speaker 1: There's a bit of a malord metaphor in this story.
Speaker 1: Somewhere seems like there always is, always is a bit
Speaker 1: of a metaphor. So maybe it's about the hubris that
Speaker 1: I was so confident in my ability to multitask that
Speaker 1: I tried to make lunch and play iron chef at
Speaker 1: the same time while watching while watching the World series.
Speaker 1: It might be about my age, the way reflexes kind
Speaker 1: of slowed down, and the knives don't forget and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. However, I don't think of myself as that old.
Speaker 1: I know mathematically if you had told me when I
Speaker 1: was twelve years old, you said, how old, Well that's
Speaker 1: old man, You're a relic. You're really old. Or maybe
Speaker 1: it's about the metaphor is about Halloween itself, and we
Speaker 1: spend so many you're watching horror movies and all this
Speaker 1: stuff and trying to get those fake scares, only to
Speaker 1: find that at some point the real ones are sitting
Speaker 1: there very quietly off to the side in the kitchen, waiting,
Speaker 1: just waiting for you to reach for the cutting board
Speaker 1: and the very sharp knife. And the whole thing reminds
Speaker 1: me of every over confident, blowhard radio host who thinks
Speaker 1: that they can juggle too many hot takes at once
Speaker 1: and you end up burning the microphones one slip and
Speaker 1: suddenly you're bleeding ratings. In that case, but that the
Speaker 1: knife doesn't care if you've done this a thousand times before, right,
Speaker 1: they don't care. So again later tonight on Halloween. Later tonight,
Speaker 1: when I visit my lovely and sweet niece and nephew
Speaker 1: for their Halloween festival, I will be the man with
Speaker 1: the bandage, hand the new skin, and then the bandage
Speaker 1: walking PSA for life safety call me the middle aged Frankenstein,
Speaker 1: and I will be held together by gauze and regret
Speaker 1: that I didn't pay closer attention while chopping the onion.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be some kids if I take the
Speaker 1: gauze off that will scream, oh my god, what happened
Speaker 1: to that man. I'll smile. I'll smile at them, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell them kids, this is a teachable moment. This
Speaker 1: is a public service announcement from your friend on the radio.
Speaker 1: I used to be the king of PSA. Is what happens.
Speaker 1: This is what happens when you don't respect the onion.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you respect the almighty onion. Now the good
Speaker 1: news again, my finger is still attached. The bad news,
Speaker 1: the chunk of my flesh is gone. The ego is
Speaker 1: not attached as much a homemade costume. I would tell
Speaker 1: you though, this homemade costume unforgettable, unforgettable. After all, there
Speaker 1: is nothing, nothing that says Halloween like the authentic droplets
Speaker 1: of blood on your apron and a story that begins
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a quiet lunch by myself,
Speaker 1: and then you'll never believe what happened next. You'll never
Speaker 1: ever believe it. All right, turn the page on that
Speaker 1: we go to the great radio Pilgrimage in sin City.
Speaker 1: That's right, beautiful sin City. So people go to Vegas
Speaker 1: to gamble, to take part in all kinds of debauchery,
Speaker 1: to party, to lose all sense of time and place.
Speaker 1: We know that I go to Vegas three or four
Speaker 1: times a year. Now. I went there to renew this
Speaker 1: last weekend there, to renew my vows with radio, or
Speaker 1: at least to confirm that the almighty, all powerful, omnipresent
Speaker 1: magic Radio Box still exists on the big stage. When
Speaker 1: it seems like most people get their content from TikTok
Speaker 1: and Instagram and they get to that social media dopamine
Speaker 1: slot machine going and all that stuff, you realize that
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a rig game, right, that social media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone's on there, but how many people are active on
Speaker 1: there and whatnot. So it turns out that there's a
Speaker 1: lot there. The Magic Radio Box still exists and it
Speaker 1: is great. So this past weekend, again I found myself
Speaker 1: bleary eyed and heavily over the caffeinated with those caffeine supplements.
Speaker 1: I got at CBS doing the Bend Maler Show, The
Speaker 1: Bend Maler Show from the world class iHeart Studios on
Speaker 1: Fremont Street. I am blown away. I said it last time,
Speaker 1: and I went in there again, and I want to
Speaker 1: thank Ice, who's a big DJ star. She knows Flavor Flaves,
Speaker 1: She's a big deal in Vegas and she kind of
Speaker 1: runs that place at night. She came in there and
Speaker 1: we were hanging out and it was cool. Nice to
Speaker 1: see her again and anyway, moving on with sorry. So
Speaker 1: I was there at the Iheartstudos Fremont Street now Fremont again.
Speaker 1: For those of you that have not been to Vegas,
Speaker 1: and for those of you that have been but haven't
Speaker 1: been lately, Fremont Street is what happens when the civilized
Speaker 1: world decides it's no longer interested in daylight. It is
Speaker 1: a real life freak show. There is no admission. You
Speaker 1: don't have to pay for admission. You just go through
Speaker 1: some metal detectors. It's a freak show with free admission.
Speaker 1: It's a human zoo. And unlike the San Diego Zoo,
Speaker 1: where you might see a hippo or a heeling monster
Speaker 1: or any other goblin that might be there, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it turns out that when you go to Fremont Street,
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay. It's a human zoo and
Speaker 1: it's where you can see everything from grown men wearing
Speaker 1: diapers to women wearing pasties who probably shouldn't be wearing pasties.
Speaker 1: You know, we should maybe had one less cheeseburger. And
Speaker 1: I'm the last guy to talk. And then Elvis impersonators
Speaker 1: up the wazoo a little bit of everything. I got
Speaker 1: cover bands, there's music, there's zip lines. It is sensory overload,
Speaker 1: is what it is. It's also humanity's clearance rack. It is.
Speaker 1: So I wrap up the overnight show in Vegas, and
Speaker 1: I wrap it up. I wrap it up. It's like
Speaker 1: three in the morning. Right, Wait, this this works. I
Speaker 1: wrap it up, and I have some other business I
Speaker 1: have to take care of, so I can't just leave
Speaker 1: right away. But that's the witching hour at three am.
Speaker 1: That's the witching hour for the degenerate and the dreamer
Speaker 1: in that part of Vegas, Old Vegas and then or
Speaker 1: downtown base what you're gonna call it at locals, I
Speaker 1: think say Downtown, Others say Fremont, whatever, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: You get the point. So, because the job requires a
Speaker 1: certain level of lunacy when you do this kind of work,
Speaker 1: I drag my fat ass and I took my lovely
Speaker 1: wife over to New York, New York, down on the
Speaker 1: Strip for the Power Trip Morning show from Kfan in Minneapolis, Kfan, Kfan. Now,
Speaker 1: if you live outside the Twin Cities, and by the way,
Speaker 1: my hand is raised, I do live outside the Twin Cities,
Speaker 1: you might not grasp the gravitational pull of the Power Trip. Well, Ben,
Speaker 1: it's just a little morning show, It's all it is.
Speaker 1: Don't embellish it. We don't need puffery. What is wrong
Speaker 1: with you? I don't do that. Okay, time out. This
Speaker 1: is not puffery. This is not embellishment. It is not
Speaker 1: I promise you I will let you know next time
Speaker 1: I go down that road. So the morning show, the
Speaker 1: Power Trip. The big stars the players are Chris hockey,
Speaker 1: or Hawkeye as we call hockey. His nicknames is the
Speaker 1: Hawk Corey and then Meat Sauce, whose real name is Paul,
Speaker 1: but he goes by the name Meat Sauce. And so
Speaker 1: these guys, Hawk Corey and Meat Sauce are the three
Speaker 1: Musketeers of Minnesota mornings. One part sports, one part stand
Speaker 1: up comedy, and one part group therapy. And by any
Speaker 1: measurement and by every metric, they are a phenomena. They
Speaker 1: are and tip of the headphones from one radio guide
Speaker 1: to another, and they're very kind. They liked the overnight
Speaker 1: show where they'll lead in on the network. They carry
Speaker 1: us overnight on Kfan, And to put in perspective about
Speaker 1: how bonkers this whole thing was, there were listeners and
Speaker 1: not just a few listeners that plan their vacations around
Speaker 1: these guys. The show is simulcast across the iHeart and
Speaker 1: a bunch of iHeart stations in Minnesota. It's also streamed online.
Speaker 1: They've got a massive following rivaling you know, you think
Speaker 1: about like some football teams that have no fans, like
Speaker 1: a small market NFL franchise. And on this particular weekend,
Speaker 1: they were broadcasting in Vegas and that's how I, the
Speaker 1: overnight Vampire from Fox Sports Radio, ended up in their orbit,
Speaker 1: and I had actually met Hawk. I think we talked
Speaker 1: about this. I met Hawk a little while back thanks
Speaker 1: to some Mallard Militia listeners in Minnesota who are big
Speaker 1: fans of both shows who connected us the last time
Speaker 1: I was in Vegas and Hawk happened to be there. Now,
Speaker 1: originally the plan was when I had seen Hawk the
Speaker 1: last time, I said, oh, yeah, he guess he works
Speaker 1: for the Vikings. He does some of the radio stuff
Speaker 1: for the Minnesota Vikings. So I figured, well, the plan
Speaker 1: would be to hang out when the Vikings played the
Speaker 1: Chargers at Sofi Stadium, that I'd go there, I'd prepare
Speaker 1: for my radio show. I'd get to see the quick
Speaker 1: five minute hey, how you're doing good, to catch up
Speaker 1: with you and all that stuff. So that was the plan.
Speaker 1: The Vikings weren't time to play the Chargers last Thursday,
Speaker 1: or I guess two thursdays ago, because last night we
Speaker 1: had the Ravens absolutely dismember the Dolphins. Back to the story,
Speaker 1: so you know, here we are the Chargers and Vikings,
Speaker 1: two teams that could lose a coin toss with a
Speaker 1: Magnet and I was going to go to the game
Speaker 1: and Hawk had text me a couple of weeks earlier.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, you know, I think I forget exactly
Speaker 1: what he said. We said we're going to be in Vegas.
Speaker 1: I think he said something like the guys want to
Speaker 1: meet you on the show. And so he invited me
Speaker 1: on their show, and I could not resist. I love radio,
Speaker 1: and I've heard so many crazy things about how good
Speaker 1: the show is and how popular the show is and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. The Minnesota audience is just different. It
Speaker 1: just cuts different. And you guys had hyped these guys
Speaker 1: up on Power Trip for a while. People were prank
Speaker 1: calling us with meat sauce, saying meat sauce and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. So you guys had been telling me that
Speaker 1: this was the show, the Power Trip. This was it right,
Speaker 1: This is like the Beatles of bloviating. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to see with all of the gusto I have or
Speaker 1: the what it was in living color. I wanted to
Speaker 1: witness it the hullaballoo. So there I was. I made
Speaker 1: a last minute trip to Las Vegas. Now my wife
Speaker 1: was with me, and she asked me as we were
Speaker 1: leaving Fremont Street, the iHeart Studios, going to the hotel
Speaker 1: for a second and going to the event. She asked me,
Speaker 1: She's like, well, you know who's going to be there,
Speaker 1: Who's gonna be on hand? Do I need to get
Speaker 1: dressed up for this? As is anyone going to be there?
Speaker 1: And I told her, I said, listen, this popular show,
Speaker 1: it's a local show. They're sixteen hundred miles or whatever
Speaker 1: it is away from the Twin Cities. It's four in
Speaker 1: the morning. Just don't expect much. I know it's a
Speaker 1: popular show, but who's going to show up here at
Speaker 1: this time? It was four in the morning. And so
Speaker 1: you know what happens when you assume, right, you know,
Speaker 1: we all know what happens when you assume. So I
Speaker 1: parked the car, I pay my twenty five dollars for parking.
Speaker 1: I'm paying seventy dollars in Vegas for a little over
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. Ended up paying seventy dollars to park
Speaker 1: the car. You know how much you paid to park
Speaker 1: the car for? I don't know. Thirty years up until
Speaker 1: about ten years ago, nothing, nothing. It was free. Everywhere
Speaker 1: was free. If they've charged for parking, you didn't go
Speaker 1: you said you ignored it. That's it anyway, So I
Speaker 1: assumed there would be very few people there. I'm walking
Speaker 1: through New York, New York, after paying, you know, getting
Speaker 1: ripped off for the parking, and I was waiting with
Speaker 1: baited breath to find tumbleweeds to the right direct from Russia,
Speaker 1: an invasive species. And I thought there'd be a few chainsmoking,
Speaker 1: probably older elderly women, and a few guys, maybe in
Speaker 1: wheelchairs with oxygen, and there'd be some other guys that
Speaker 1: were heavily intoxicated, some insomniacs clinging the slot machines. Instead,
Speaker 1: I found something that I still marvel at. There were
Speaker 1: hundreds of people in Minnesota, purple jerseys, hats. I didn't
Speaker 1: see any face paint. There might have been some guy
Speaker 1: in the back. I think he fell asleep. There was
Speaker 1: a buzz kind of sounded like that, kind of sounded
Speaker 1: like that that could light the strip up. It was
Speaker 1: not just a crowd, it was a congregation. I was like, WHOA, Like,
Speaker 1: I've done Mallard meet greets, and we get good crowds.
Speaker 1: We get sometimes we don't get good growd with the
Speaker 1: smallest one we ever had was in Wisconsin. It was
Speaker 1: last minute. It was Appleton, Wisconsin. We do pretty well
Speaker 1: in Boston. We've done well. In La we've done well.
Speaker 1: We've had good turnouts in Minnesota. By the way, was
Speaker 1: amazing when we did the malar meat greet there in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. So anyway, I was like, okay, so there
Speaker 1: are all these people. It was not just a crowd.
Speaker 1: It was like, like I said, it was bigger than that.
Speaker 1: You don't get that in radio much anymore, in an
Speaker 1: era where the corporate machine is worried about one thing
Speaker 1: and one thing only the bottom line. That's all that matters.
Speaker 1: And the goal of many of these mega media companies
Speaker 1: is not a good product. They want a product you'll
Speaker 1: listen to. It doesn't have to be good. The main
Speaker 1: goal is just nickel and dime everything low ball here.
Speaker 1: You know, they can't give you that there all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Now we know that every one's chasing clicks and the
Speaker 1: algorithm and all that. But these guys have created a
Speaker 1: real a real community, I guess is the word I'll
Speaker 1: use again as something that is tangible. And so this
Speaker 1: was a chicken soup for the Broadcast Soul chicken soup
Speaker 1: for the Broadcast Soul. It was like bone broth that
Speaker 1: went right into my bones. And it reminded me why
Speaker 1: I got in to this racket years ago in the
Speaker 1: first place, when I decided to go down that road,
Speaker 1: and I could have been a doctor or a lawyer,
Speaker 1: some kind of Wall Street guy, and I went down
Speaker 1: this road, so I got in this racket. And that
Speaker 1: the connection, the bond, the live wire between a microphone
Speaker 1: and a fan base, that just feels something. There's something there,
Speaker 1: the communal aspect of it, that you're all listening to
Speaker 1: the same thing at the same time, you're all part
Speaker 1: of it. So we're pretty lucky. We're pretty lucky you
Speaker 1: and I because we have that in the Mallard Militia.
Speaker 1: We have that. These guys found it in Morning Drive
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, and congratulations, good job by them. They don't
Speaker 1: need Meda corasulate them. They've done a great job. Moving
Speaker 1: on with the story, the Power Trip Fellas from Minnesota.
Speaker 1: The Power Trip Fellas. They even allowed me access behind
Speaker 1: the velvet ropes to take part in the crown jewel
Speaker 1: of their show, the segment of segments every Friday. It's
Speaker 1: the Initials Game. Well, what the f is the Initials Game?
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is for the uninitiated, and
Speaker 1: I was part of that. It's kind of like Jeopardy
Speaker 1: Cross with Wheel of Fortune, only a little bit louder,
Speaker 1: hopefully funnier, and very competitive, much more competitive than those shows.
Speaker 1: Now they've been doing this for years. I was on
Speaker 1: episode six hundred. They have their own standalone podcast on iHeart.
Speaker 1: The podcast allows you to play along the Initials game,
Speaker 1: and so this has become a regional phenomenon. They actually
Speaker 1: sell the home version online. They sell a fair amount
Speaker 1: of copies around the Upper Midwest. And there's really no pressure, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, here am I here? I am rather here.
Speaker 1: I am just showing up, you know, I'm the guest
Speaker 1: and all that. And I actually practiced. The guys told
Speaker 1: me they wanted me to be on this, and so
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I'll do it. I'll practice. And
Speaker 1: so I went in the car and I turned on
Speaker 1: their podcast and I listened and I was yapping away
Speaker 1: talking about you know whatever, and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: playing along. And sure enough, I practiced, and when it
Speaker 1: was showtime the lights came on, I ended up surrounded
Speaker 1: by savants. Hawk and Meat Sauce were like Mozart and
Speaker 1: Da Vinci, except they had a buzzer, which was their name,
Speaker 1: and they rattled off answers before I could even process
Speaker 1: the first clue boom, and I was shut out early.
Speaker 1: I was shut out. I'm not going to sit here
Speaker 1: and do revisions history. But redemption came in the bonus
Speaker 1: round and the initials were gl and I got Great Lakes.
Speaker 1: That was me. They didn't give it to me. They
Speaker 1: didn't hand it to me. Nobody told me what the
Speaker 1: word was. I scored Great Lakes. Mission accomplished. So after
Speaker 1: the show, the many fans there that were not there
Speaker 1: to see me, they were there to hang out with
Speaker 1: the power Trip. They wanted a little FaceTime after the event,
Speaker 1: and many of them had Again, I just want to
Speaker 1: stress how crazy this is. These people flew out to
Speaker 1: La to watch the Vikings play the Chargers. It then
Speaker 1: drove all night from in the hood in Inglewood and
Speaker 1: up no good. So they drove all night from Inglewood
Speaker 1: near Lax through the California desert just to be there
Speaker 1: after watching their Vikings get mollywopped by the Chargers and
Speaker 1: they weren't chasing fame or prizes. They were just chasing
Speaker 1: that bond between a listener and the radio show. And
Speaker 1: I did have a chance to talk to some of
Speaker 1: these people. You know who you are. If you're listening
Speaker 1: right now, you might remember our conversation. It is interesting
Speaker 1: to note that a few of the people said that
Speaker 1: they were just in Vegas for the morning show at
Speaker 1: the Power Trip. They were then planning on driving back
Speaker 1: to la because apparently the and I didn't check the
Speaker 1: Timberwolves and the Lakers played the game, so they were
Speaker 1: planning on sticking around to watch that game. So okay,
Speaker 1: and met I didn't write any notes down, but I
Speaker 1: met the guy. One of the guys was there. He's
Speaker 1: sitting in the front on the right hand side. He
Speaker 1: works at a pepsi plant in Minnesota. He told me
Speaker 1: that the boys listen all the time, that they're fans
Speaker 1: of the show. They bottle pepsi products in Minnesota. There
Speaker 1: was another gentleman who was there with his wife who
Speaker 1: she's from Dallas. I remember he's from he's from Minnesota
Speaker 1: and now they're both in Denver. And unless unless what
Speaker 1: he told me was wrong or I made it up,
Speaker 1: in my head, I believe he had said, since he
Speaker 1: lives in Denver, he's had the Mallor. Now, what is
Speaker 1: the Mallor? I don't know what the malor is. The
Speaker 1: Mallor is one of the most delicious things you can
Speaker 1: possibly have. It is well. The Mallor is available at
Speaker 1: the Sportsbook Bar and Grill. There are multiple locations in
Speaker 1: the Greater Denver area. They are not paying me to
Speaker 1: tell you about this. I just want to get the
Speaker 1: word out. We spent so much time promoting the Ben
Speaker 1: Mallard chicken. Fingers often lost in the shuffle, Often lost
Speaker 1: in the shuffle. Is this The Sportsbook Bar and Grill
Speaker 1: has the Mallor. That's the name of it, the mallar
Speaker 1: buffalo chicken. They have the fried chicken breast tossed in
Speaker 1: hot sauce. They have the lettuce, the tomato. If you
Speaker 1: want to go that, I go, no tomato on mine.
Speaker 1: They have blue cheese. I don't need the blue cheese.
Speaker 1: I'm good. I don't need the blue cheese. But it's delicious.
Speaker 1: I recommend it, highly recommended it anyway. But despite that,
Speaker 1: again we lined up, met some fans, took some photos,
Speaker 1: and at the very end there, I was running on
Speaker 1: fumes and the caffeine had worn out. So I stumbled
Speaker 1: back to the hotel, which was off the strip, one
Speaker 1: of the few hotels that has free parking, very important
Speaker 1: much so I paid seventy five dollars for parking, and
Speaker 1: I didn't even have to pay at the hotel. We
Speaker 1: stayed at seventy five dollars. Went to the place we
Speaker 1: do the radio show at the iHeart Studios, had to
Speaker 1: pay for that. Well, you work for iHeart, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to pay. Okay, we'll let the people over there know.
Speaker 1: Let them know everything got turned off, including what happened
Speaker 1: in we just mentioned here the whole thing shut down
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So anyway, I just loved the
Speaker 1: tremendous vibe that was out there, and so I went
Speaker 1: back to the hotel. I crashed. The ears were still
Speaker 1: ringing with laughter and applause. And it wasn't about me.
Speaker 1: It was about the medium. A reminder that even in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, when everyone's jaded and yours truly as well,
Speaker 1: and the algorithm is the almighty, all powerful king, it's
Speaker 1: not about how many people listen, it's how many people
Speaker 1: click and radio still has more than a pulsip. Radio
Speaker 1: to me is like baseball. For two hundred years, or
Speaker 1: at least one hundred and fifty, people have been writing
Speaker 1: stories that baseball's boring, baseball's dead, Baseball's not gonna make it.
Speaker 1: All of these stories right year after year, and it
Speaker 1: just keeps on going. It just keeps on going and
Speaker 1: going and going. And the funny thing is more people
Speaker 1: now want to do radio than they ever before in
Speaker 1: the history of radio. Radio has never been more popular
Speaker 1: than it is today. And What's My evidence podcast? Whether
Speaker 1: it's consuming podcasting like this show, or whether or not
Speaker 1: it is doing your own podcast. There are so many
Speaker 1: people that want to do podcasts and want to listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. God bless them because this is a podcast.
Speaker 1: But get to the point, please. So the point is.
Speaker 1: The point is that when you're doing a podcast or
Speaker 1: listening to a podcast, it's radio without the radio. However,
Speaker 1: it's still radio. You're doing broadcast work, you're doing spoken word.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I know some of the podcasts are on video and
Speaker 1: some of the radio shows are on video. The point is,
Speaker 1: though the essence of it, the ethos of it, is
Speaker 1: that it is a audio program. That you don't have
Speaker 1: to sit there and watch the show. You can. You
Speaker 1: can do what you want, right, You can do what
Speaker 1: you want, and so listen. Vegas just has its own sound,
Speaker 1: of course, is the slot machines, the sirens, the constant
Speaker 1: hum people trying to win something, to get out of
Speaker 1: a deep dark place. However, tucked inside a casino at
Speaker 1: New York, New York, at dawn, I saw something better.
Speaker 1: I saw something better. There were a bunch of proud Minnesotans,
Speaker 1: Minnesota and Ice, proving that when the right voices come
Speaker 1: through the speakers, people still show up. And they weren't
Speaker 1: there for a jackpot because nobody won that. They were
Speaker 1: there for a connection. They were there for a connection,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty freaking cool. It really was. All Right,
Speaker 1: we'll leave you on that note. We'll see what happens
Speaker 1: tonight with the Dodgers. We should have a very Dodger
Speaker 1: centric fifth hour. I will put together some Mallard monologues
Speaker 1: after the game, and we'll come in here early tomorrow
Speaker 1: on Saturday morning, the first day of November, and we'll
Speaker 1: cobble together a malamool I hopefully Danny will be with me.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he's Halloween weekend. He might be out
Speaker 1: of town. I don't know, but there it is. All right.
Speaker 1: We'll put the baby to bed, have a wonderful, gious
Speaker 1: rest of your Halloween. We'll see what happens with the
Speaker 1: Dodgers and Jays tonight, and I we'll catch you next
Speaker 1: time later, skater asta pasta. See that's see, Danny, that's
Speaker 1: the part, Danny. That's the part where we end this
Speaker 1: right here. See this is the end part. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it right there, we end it. Yeah, that's right. Okay,
Speaker 1: hit that that what you might call yeah, hit to
Speaker 1: what you mightna call it? Got a murder. I gotta go,
Speaker 1: thank you, okay, bye bye