Speaker 1: Kabooms. If you thought four hours a day dred minutes
Speaker 1: a week was enough, I think again. He's the last
Speaker 1: remnants of the old republic, a sole fashion of fairness.
Speaker 1: He treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as
Speaker 1: the rich pill poppers in the penthouse, to clearinghouse of
Speaker 1: hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
Speaker 1: with Ben Maller starts right now in the air everywhere.
Speaker 1: Back at it on a Saturday, the weekend before the
Speaker 1: big Thanksgiving weekend in the Magic Podcast studio. Yes, four
Speaker 1: hours a night are not enough. We do this eight
Speaker 1: days a week. I know. It's amazing. It's amazing. So
Speaker 1: on this edition of The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller,
Speaker 1: we have a staple of the holiday season, something that
Speaker 1: I knew three times a year. I do it on
Speaker 1: terrestrial radio, but I'm using it now on the podcast
Speaker 1: because I thought I'd be ahead of the game on
Speaker 1: the podcast. And we will take a trip on the
Speaker 1: lazy River of sports talk radio, the lazy River of
Speaker 1: sports talk radio. We also have the screw job. We
Speaker 1: look forward to that. A gassy mass, a gassy mass,
Speaker 1: and we will get scientifical, assuming we have the time
Speaker 1: remaining the allotted time in this edition of the Fifth Hour,
Speaker 1: We thank you for finding this podcast. Has there been
Speaker 1: a new co host named? No, uh, there is not
Speaker 1: a new a co host, but there is supposed to
Speaker 1: be movement in that direction. I have a pretty good
Speaker 1: idea of who the person will will be. And I
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of drama and a lot of
Speaker 1: people wondering is it gonna be somebody that we know,
Speaker 1: is it gonna be somebody new? Is it gonna be
Speaker 1: a big shocker surprise motherfucker. Well you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: wait and find out. I cannot give that information out
Speaker 1: because the agreement has not been made, at least not official,
Speaker 1: official official, But once it's official, and then we go
Speaker 1: into the verbal octagon, which is the fifth Hour, and
Speaker 1: watch out. So we will have that information coming up
Speaker 1: as soon as we are allowed to give out the name,
Speaker 1: and we will promote, promote, promote. Until then, though, I
Speaker 1: still need this podcast to get bigger and better and bolder,
Speaker 1: so we keep doing the podcast. Five stars, five stars, right,
Speaker 1: a little review, knock yourself out on that. That helps
Speaker 1: a lot. Now, I would say, and I've said this
Speaker 1: in the path I'll say it again for the new people.
Speaker 1: To me, it doesn't really matter, right. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have we have a good number of people that download
Speaker 1: the podcast. They're pretty happy with the way the show
Speaker 1: is going. But there are advertisers and people that are
Speaker 1: in the audio game that read those reviews. And I
Speaker 1: would say that, but these people have a lot of
Speaker 1: time on their hands and they are going through everything
Speaker 1: and reading the reviews, and the people like you, do
Speaker 1: they not like you? What's going on and all that,
Speaker 1: and so there there is a lot that goes into that.
Speaker 1: So as long as we had a few reviews from
Speaker 1: time to time generally positive would help. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: as long as that continues, I think we're in good shape.
Speaker 1: So let's begin, though, on this edition of the Fifth
Speaker 1: Hour with the handbook too Lazy Sports Talk Radio. This
Speaker 1: is done as a public service announcement. I have spent
Speaker 1: my entire adult life, entire time as a bloviating gas bag. Yes,
Speaker 1: that has been my gig. And over the years I
Speaker 1: have noticed, having worked a lot of holidays, that a
Speaker 1: number of my coworkers do not take the holiday sports
Speaker 1: talk radio very seriously. There's a couple of things that
Speaker 1: I would advise you to look for. Now. This is
Speaker 1: assuming you are still consuming audio content that you might
Speaker 1: stumble across some radio over the holiday weekend. Many of
Speaker 1: the weekday host are not there. They do the old switcheroo,
Speaker 1: and some of the weekend people, some of the backup
Speaker 1: people get to come in. And having been a weekend host,
Speaker 1: having been a backup host, that is something that I
Speaker 1: often did. I worked the holidays. I would wax lyrical
Speaker 1: on holidays, and I felt like it was a big opportunity.
Speaker 1: And and so of course, now that I have the
Speaker 1: full time job, and I've had it for several years,
Speaker 1: a number of years now, I still do not take
Speaker 1: the holidays off. Now there's there's reasons for that. Before
Speaker 1: I give you the lazy sports radio holiday, a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons I do not take, especially Thanksgiving. I do
Speaker 1: take time off between Christmas and New Year's, but usually
Speaker 1: work on Thanksgiving for many, many reasons. Uh. And one
Speaker 1: of the big ones in the last like almost ten
Speaker 1: years and it's been eight years, is that Thanksgiving for
Speaker 1: me was always a trip with mom. You know. It
Speaker 1: was going to Mom's house, eating turkey stuff and the
Speaker 1: pumpkin pie, the cranberries. My mom loved cranberries. She always
Speaker 1: had good cranberries, uh, and she had yams. I hated yams,
Speaker 1: so I would eat the marshmallows on top. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: the marshmallows on top. Yeah. I know there's like horse
Speaker 1: parts in the marshmallows, but they tasted good. And as
Speaker 1: a fat kid, I would brush aside all the yams
Speaker 1: and I would just eat the delicious, wonderful uh marshmallow stuff.
Speaker 1: So my mom has been gone for a while now,
Speaker 1: and you know I did. I did occasionally go to
Speaker 1: my in laws for Thanksgiving, but all my other family
Speaker 1: lives far far away. I've got a brother in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: a brother in New York. I've got some other random
Speaker 1: relatives that are scattered all over the country. I have
Speaker 1: some friends in uh old cousins of mine in Connecticut
Speaker 1: and New York, Arizona, Colorado. The the Mallard family and
Speaker 1: the other families associated with the Mallory family are all
Speaker 1: all over, some in Florida, you name it, but not
Speaker 1: a lot in Cali, where I live. So that's the
Speaker 1: first thing. The second thing is normally on Thanksgiving, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people alone that don't have any anyone
Speaker 1: to hang out with, any family. That's it's important time,
Speaker 1: especially being on overnight. I don't know, man, I just
Speaker 1: it's somebody to keep your company. That's one of the
Speaker 1: great things about radio is that you can really get
Speaker 1: a connection that no other media gives you. As great
Speaker 1: as the internet is, as wonderful as social media is
Speaker 1: and television and all of that, there's just something about
Speaker 1: being by yourself late at night, kind of on the
Speaker 1: edge of your seat and listening and having someone talk
Speaker 1: to you and you don't have to talk back. It's
Speaker 1: just somebody trying to entertain you, and that that becomes
Speaker 1: even more important now. To be fair, we also have
Speaker 1: a lot of drunk people that do have family and
Speaker 1: do have people that love them, and have decided that
Speaker 1: their family is so annoying, their in laws are so
Speaker 1: annoying that without reservation, they run out and get as
Speaker 1: boozed up as they possibly can right and just start
Speaker 1: going for it and having a wonderful time. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: but then they have no care in the world. So
Speaker 1: we'll get a lot of drunkards that call up on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: And then the third part of this is my wife
Speaker 1: usually ends up working on Thanksgiving also, and I think
Speaker 1: it's because I usually work on Thanksgiving. But she works
Speaker 1: as a nine on one operator, and so my wife
Speaker 1: works at the police station. And much like radio, although
Speaker 1: much more important the police, when you work at a
Speaker 1: police station, they don't close the police station down because
Speaker 1: it's Thanksgiving or whatever. So you still have to work
Speaker 1: and and still have to do your thing, and so
Speaker 1: she knows I enjoy working. And it's a little easier
Speaker 1: now because I have at home studio, so I don't
Speaker 1: have to drive into the radio station. I just kind
Speaker 1: of hang out in the home studio. So it doesn't
Speaker 1: really change. The schedule doesn't change, and Thanksgiving is always
Speaker 1: a great day to work because they're from a sports
Speaker 1: radio standpoint, Uh, there's a bunch of football and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of different storylines in the NFL's brimming with
Speaker 1: content that's right front and center, and it's it's not
Speaker 1: like you have to put a lot of work into that,
Speaker 1: and so that's another added bonus. Like so many times
Speaker 1: during the periods of the year where there's not a
Speaker 1: lot going on, you kind of muddle around and you're
Speaker 1: throwing Feducchini Alfredo against the wall scene if any of
Speaker 1: it sticks to the wall. Uh, So you can put
Speaker 1: together an interesting program. You don't have to do that much. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, in comparison to a June sometime in June
Speaker 1: when there's just a couple of random baseball games going on,
Speaker 1: the NBA Finals are over, and you're depending on the
Speaker 1: second wave of free agency, and you're like, that is
Speaker 1: what I need right there. That's gonna drive me through.
Speaker 1: And it's there are times that you're really putting your
Speaker 1: neck out. But Thanksgiving ing, uh is not a time
Speaker 1: where you hear here that you don't hear that very
Speaker 1: much because there's games. We got game action, a lot
Speaker 1: of game action, and maybe it will be some kind
Speaker 1: of wardrobe malfunction or something like that that we can
Speaker 1: walk down memory lane and break down the singing performance
Speaker 1: during a random, random halftime show on Thanksgiving and knock
Speaker 1: yourselves out. Now, as far as that's concerned, let's let's
Speaker 1: get to the actual handbook for lazy sports radio. So
Speaker 1: this is a public service, and I'm not out here
Speaker 1: to to out anyone. I am doing this much like
Speaker 1: I do the NFL book them. I am doing this
Speaker 1: to encourage my fellow brothers and sisters in sports talk radio,
Speaker 1: to put some work into it, to make some effort
Speaker 1: out of sports talk radio that do it, do it
Speaker 1: the right way, don't do it the lazy right, don't
Speaker 1: float on an inner tube on the lazy river bed,
Speaker 1: or do better. Don't set our profession back. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: all I ask is for an honest effort. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. Why do people tune in to radio shows? Uh,
Speaker 1: there's different reasons for that. Boredom is usually right at
Speaker 1: the top of the list, right, boredoms at the top
Speaker 1: of list. Uh, you're looking for some entertainment. I would
Speaker 1: say that's a pretty good reason. Also, you're looking for something.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're working and you have a very boring job
Speaker 1: and you're like, boy, this job sucks. Man. I need
Speaker 1: something to make the time go faster, and a good
Speaker 1: radio show will do that. I can still work, I
Speaker 1: can listen with one ear and and then get the
Speaker 1: show going the other. You know, good getting the work
Speaker 1: done with the other ear. Yeah, I understand that. So anyway,
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving weekend his historically the beginning of the worst sports
Speaker 1: talk radio you can get. Now, what is lazy sports
Speaker 1: talk radio? Thanksgiving weekend. Typically it is along the lines
Speaker 1: of this, what in sports are you thankful for? And
Speaker 1: then they give out the number and then the list.
Speaker 1: The host will list some of the things there's thanking
Speaker 1: they'll thankful for in sports. Thankful for Tom Brady playing
Speaker 1: for the Buccaneers. I'm thankful that Russell Wilson is back
Speaker 1: with the Seattle Seahawks, and a lot of random things.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful Tiger Woods did not die in the car accident.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful that, you know, whatever it might be, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of hokey cornball stuff. So if you hear that,
Speaker 1: you know that the host has not done any proper
Speaker 1: preparation and it's just going out there it didn't happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could do the same thing that they did in seven,
Speaker 1: the same generic topic. Now the answers will a little different,
Speaker 1: but the topic the same. Another trope of Thanksgiving weekend
Speaker 1: sports talk radio is who's the biggest turkey in sports?
Speaker 1: Who's the biggest turkey in sports? Always fun to rattle
Speaker 1: off some athletes that got in trouble with the law,
Speaker 1: or Kyrie Irving, you know, things like that. So biggest
Speaker 1: turkey in sports a sign that you are listening to
Speaker 1: a lazy sports talk radio host. Also, who would you
Speaker 1: like to invite the Thanksgiving dinner? All right, who do
Speaker 1: you want to come over the Thanksgiving dinner? Sit down
Speaker 1: there and have a wonderfully deliciously prepared meal. Eat the bird, right,
Speaker 1: have a little turkey and a little stuffing on the side.
Speaker 1: They're more turkey, and eat some cranberries. Eat more turkey.
Speaker 1: And then he said, what are you doing in my Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what are you doing my table? Actually to be
Speaker 1: the question there? So who would you invite the Thanksgiving dinner?
Speaker 1: And the and they usually do dead or alive? Dead
Speaker 1: or alive is almost always the way that goes. And
Speaker 1: you so I want to have Babe Ruth. I'd like
Speaker 1: to have Hank care and he just died. I'd have
Speaker 1: handcare in there. And let's go. I'll have Joe name
Speaker 1: if he's a lie, but he's getting older there, so
Speaker 1: I have Joe come in there. How about go down
Speaker 1: the list here, let's see any mean any my name
Speaker 1: Bill Walsh. He's dead, he can be like the head
Speaker 1: of the table. We'll have Bill Walsh the old fort.
Speaker 1: It's like it's that kind of thing, you know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: come on, we don't need to be sure to catch
Speaker 1: live editions of the Ben Maller Show weekdays at two
Speaker 1: am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio ap Also, this is something that's
Speaker 1: relatively new for the lazy river of Thanksgiving weekend sports
Speaker 1: talk radio, and that is, let's have a Thanksgiving weekend draft.
Speaker 1: With the first pick, my plate picks Turkey. We with
Speaker 1: the second pick one Thanksgiving weekend draft, I'm going with
Speaker 1: in an upset Cranberry sauce. Anyway, Needless to say that
Speaker 1: this is a sign that the person doing the show
Speaker 1: is not putting a lot of effort into the show.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to lazy sports talk radio, so you
Speaker 1: know that drill. If you're in the Mallary militian, you've
Speaker 1: listened this far into the podcast, then you understand that
Speaker 1: we do not approve of this kind of radio. We
Speaker 1: don't do that. I work every Thanksgiving, just about I've
Speaker 1: been here for twenty years, Ploss on Fox Sports Radio,
Speaker 1: working Thanksgiving, with the exception of one time when I
Speaker 1: had a six month day vacation. But actually in reality
Speaker 1: that year I got let go January of that year,
Speaker 1: so I actually did work. I was back by the holidays,
Speaker 1: so by the time that the bird was served, I
Speaker 1: was there bloviating into a microphone. So yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was there doing my thing. But I've never done
Speaker 1: any of those topics on the radio. Now. Some people
Speaker 1: have pointed out that, hey, hey, Ben Uh, you realize
Speaker 1: that when you bring up the Handbook of Lazy Sports
Speaker 1: Talk Radio, you are actually doing lazy sports talk radio
Speaker 1: bias Moses when you are discussing this, And there is
Speaker 1: some truth to that. There is some truth to that,
Speaker 1: but I believe it's for the better good. It's rare
Speaker 1: and appropriate that I bring this up. And I'm doing
Speaker 1: it this weekend, on this satur today, because this is
Speaker 1: the Saturday before Thanksgiving week. I could have waited. I
Speaker 1: could have done this Thanksgiving weekend. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if we're gonna have new podcast on Thanksgiving weekend. I
Speaker 1: have not figured that out. I just take it one
Speaker 1: day at a time. My man take it one day
Speaker 1: at a time, is their boss likes to say. And
Speaker 1: this is in my wheelhouse right now, so I'm focused
Speaker 1: on today. I will completely forget about this podcast and
Speaker 1: we'll move on to the Mailbag podcast, and then we'll
Speaker 1: do that, and then we will forget about that, and
Speaker 1: we'll just keep going step after step, right one step
Speaker 1: in front of the other, and just keep your head
Speaker 1: down and then eventually you will get where you need
Speaker 1: to go. But I will let you know if I
Speaker 1: post something on the show Facebook page. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: good indication if I post something on Tuesday for the
Speaker 1: mail Bag that I am planning on doing a full
Speaker 1: weekend of the podcast. Otherwise I might might not. Management
Speaker 1: doesn't care about do the podcast on Thanksgiving weekend. Uh
Speaker 1: they say the downloads go down on Thanksgiving weekend and
Speaker 1: all that. Alright, Moving on to the screw job. Now,
Speaker 1: this is not the Montreal Screwjob, the famous w w
Speaker 1: E wrestling situation where people were screaming bloody murder because
Speaker 1: of a rip off, and there have been many documentaries
Speaker 1: made about Vits McMahon and the old Switcher rou that
Speaker 1: was done. This is not that, but the life of Mallard,
Speaker 1: the life of Mallard, and this the screwjob portion of
Speaker 1: the story. So I made a small upgrade to the
Speaker 1: Mallard mansion home studio in the North Woods, and I
Speaker 1: am happy to report that a couple of eagle eyed
Speaker 1: p ones in the Mallar Militia sent me email they
Speaker 1: noticed from Mallard monologues this week that something was a
Speaker 1: little different, and they pointed out what it was, which
Speaker 1: tells me these people have less of a life than
Speaker 1: I have. You know who you are if you sent
Speaker 1: me a message. So, after many years sitting in the
Speaker 1: same chair, the same big chair, I bit the bullet.
Speaker 1: I moved recently and I brought my old chair with me,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, this thing's got a
Speaker 1: lot of wear and tear on it. I've sat in
Speaker 1: it for so many hours, so many different radio shows
Speaker 1: that were so blah blah. I need a new chair.
Speaker 1: And so I went out there to the store and
Speaker 1: I shopped around. I shopped around. Now, in this studio,
Speaker 1: I get a lot of work out of it. I
Speaker 1: get a lot of work. I do twenty hours of
Speaker 1: original terrestrial radio, four hours a day, five days a week.
Speaker 1: So I put some hours in on the terrest Or radio,
Speaker 1: and then we do about three hours, give or take
Speaker 1: of original audio content here in the podcast of it.
Speaker 1: So I spent a lot of time in here, and
Speaker 1: I'm prepping a lot of my days spent in this chair,
Speaker 1: so I didn't want a short change. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to buy a crappy chair. So I started shopping around
Speaker 1: and it's it was like Goldilocks in the Three Bears
Speaker 1: when it comes to the chair. Now, if you know
Speaker 1: the story of Goldilocks, just think of me as the
Speaker 1: person that sat down in the first chair but it
Speaker 1: was too hard. And then I sat down in the
Speaker 1: second chair, but it was too soft. And then I
Speaker 1: sat down in the third chair and it was just right.
Speaker 1: So I bought it. I bought the chair, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't a cheap chair. I spent a little bit of
Speaker 1: money on the chair, and you know, it came in
Speaker 1: a giant box, and the wife helped me out there.
Speaker 1: We pulled it up to the Mallard mansion and we
Speaker 1: brought it inside there and we had to build it
Speaker 1: and to build the chair. And so I started building
Speaker 1: the chair and I followed the instructions and then everything there.
Speaker 1: They had a little thing at a twist, the screws
Speaker 1: in and you had to build the whole thing, put
Speaker 1: it together. It wasn't that hard. I've built chairs before
Speaker 1: and everything's been fine. Everything's been smooth sailing. And so
Speaker 1: I'm building this chair and I'm doing my thing, and
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, la la la la, la la la.
Speaker 1: I'm building the chair and nothing really out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1: Put the chair together, got the you got the bottom part.
Speaker 1: You start with the bottom and you kind of work
Speaker 1: your way around. You connected two big pieces together, and
Speaker 1: you're doing your thing there and everything's going great. And
Speaker 1: then I get to the final step, well, the next
Speaker 1: a lot. It wasn't the final final step, but it
Speaker 1: was the next to last step, and I, for the
Speaker 1: life of me, I cannot get the arms to go
Speaker 1: on the chair. So here I am at a fork
Speaker 1: in the road. I've got this problem. The screws. We're
Speaker 1: too small, so they wouldn't go into the proper slot,
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't the tread of the screws wouldn't lock in.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I'm almost a percent sure that I
Speaker 1: got this right here, but it's not working. And this
Speaker 1: chair was kind of pricey, and what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: And so I'm going through my head and I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, what what's the move here? What's the play?
Speaker 1: Do you return the chair? And then I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the chair, and it says right at the bottom there
Speaker 1: it says, do not return the chair. And at that
Speaker 1: moment I started I was laughing. Yeah. I was like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, I I can absolutely return the chair. No, no,
Speaker 1: I could return the chair. But but then it it
Speaker 1: said again. I kept reading this and it said right there,
Speaker 1: in bold yellow and black, it said, do not return
Speaker 1: the chair. If you have a problem, call this number.
Speaker 1: And so I'm looking at that and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: it really wants me to call this number, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to call it. I don't want to deal
Speaker 1: with anybody, but I want I want the chair. It
Speaker 1: was the top chair that I found. I spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the chair, so I would like
Speaker 1: to have this chair. So I said, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do when when that customer service line opens up,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call the number. And I've never done this before.
Speaker 1: So I did, and UH explained everything and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: no problem. Uh. They said, hey, you're very special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well thank you for that. They were very kind to me.
Speaker 1: And so they said, here, just give me your address,
Speaker 1: send a copy of the receipt, and we will send
Speaker 1: you out all of the screws you could possibly need,
Speaker 1: and you will be able to fix that chair, no problem. Alright.
Speaker 1: So at this point I'm like, all right, I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. They said, with seven to ten business days,
Speaker 1: we will have this and we will be good to go.
Speaker 1: And so, uh, I forget about it. And then a
Speaker 1: couple of days later, all of a sudden, turn up, Uh,
Speaker 1: there they are right there in the mail. I get
Speaker 1: a package from UPS and it is all the screws,
Speaker 1: all the screw So I'm very excited, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: here we go, all right, here we go. We're gonna
Speaker 1: put the arms on. I'm gonna use the new chair.
Speaker 1: And so sure enough, I put the arms in, got
Speaker 1: ready to go on that and much to my surprise,
Speaker 1: much to my surprise, even with the new screws, it
Speaker 1: was a screw job. It didn't work. Yeah, So I said,
Speaker 1: that's it. I tried. Then we took it to the store.
Speaker 1: We explained what happened, and the person at the store
Speaker 1: was really did not want us to return the item
Speaker 1: because if you return something, it screws everything up for
Speaker 1: the store. I imagine. I've never worked retail at that level,
Speaker 1: but I'm guessing that if you return the item, based
Speaker 1: on what we know from our friends who listened to
Speaker 1: this podcast, they are involved in like Amazon returns and
Speaker 1: all that that. You know, typically if you return an item,
Speaker 1: they can't resell it, and so then people are losing
Speaker 1: money right and left, and that's not good for anybody.
Speaker 1: And am I right? I think I'm I think I'm
Speaker 1: right on that. And so the guy's story was very nice,
Speaker 1: and he thought he knew what had happened, and so
Speaker 1: he said, give me like a couple of hours. I
Speaker 1: think I can play around with it and get it
Speaker 1: to work. And because he had built this type of
Speaker 1: chair before, and so sure enough, gave him a couple
Speaker 1: of hours, got a phone called ring ring, right, the
Speaker 1: phone's ringing there, I'm like, I wonder who that is.
Speaker 1: I don't recognize the number, and sure enough it turned
Speaker 1: out to be the guy who said good news, good news. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not Howard there. But I said at
Speaker 1: the uh, the chair had been fixed. We're good to go.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't picked it up. And that is the
Speaker 1: screw job, which had a happy ending. It had happy
Speaker 1: and it's kind of a rocky road, but the chair
Speaker 1: is good to go, and this thing should last hopefully
Speaker 1: for another ten years, but you never know, you never know,
Speaker 1: Like I use this thing so much, I I think
Speaker 1: this is more like a five year chair. But we'll
Speaker 1: try to take care of it, try not to pour
Speaker 1: any food on it. I have not had any real
Speaker 1: food in the studio. Very proud of that. I used
Speaker 1: to eat a lot in the other home studio when
Speaker 1: I had the W E I studio and I was
Speaker 1: doing shows for EI and this podcast. I uh, it's
Speaker 1: food I eat from time to time, but I have
Speaker 1: not had any food. The food is not in this
Speaker 1: part of the house. Uh, in the whole mansion here
Speaker 1: and I have I have water, that's it, which is
Speaker 1: probably worse than food. With all of the equipment that
Speaker 1: is in this studio, I have a whole podcast. On
Speaker 1: the right side is all podcasting equipment. The left side
Speaker 1: is all for terrestrial radio to hook up to the
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio mothership. And so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in here, and I'm pretty confident, I'm pretty confident
Speaker 1: that none of it, none of it deserves any kind
Speaker 1: of water. And if it gets water, then things are
Speaker 1: going to go very badly. So I but I, but
Speaker 1: I am pretty careful with the water right moving on
Speaker 1: to the gassy mess. The gassy mess. Now, since I
Speaker 1: relocated deep at a secret location somewhere in the north Woods,
Speaker 1: I have not had to drive nearly as much. As
Speaker 1: I point out, don't make here at the home studio,
Speaker 1: and I still drive on the weekends, and I have
Speaker 1: to make some trips around town where I live during
Speaker 1: the week but being at the home studio it has
Speaker 1: cut back on my mileage tremendously. It's been a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: But my wife has to drive much further than she
Speaker 1: used to have to drive to her work, and she
Speaker 1: drives a car that, you know, it's not a gas
Speaker 1: guzzler per se. It's a car that gets pretty good
Speaker 1: gas mileage. But even with that, when you drive a
Speaker 1: long distance four or five days a week, it adds
Speaker 1: up and you start feeling it in the wallet. And
Speaker 1: so the gas prices, like everyone else, are completely out
Speaker 1: of control. Now. Living in Cali, I don't have effective
Speaker 1: public transportation where I am now, and I lived in
Speaker 1: downtown Los Angeles, live in Lincoln Heights, and I lived
Speaker 1: an apartment in Hollywood, but I lived in Lincoln Heights,
Speaker 1: living near Dodger Stadium, and there was the Goldline, and
Speaker 1: I used to take that thing quite a bit when
Speaker 1: I was bachelor. I loved In fact, I lived pretty
Speaker 1: close to a gold Line station in Lincoln Heights, and
Speaker 1: I I drove. I drove those subway cars all over
Speaker 1: I take that thing, you know, if you know the
Speaker 1: geography in southern California, I take it all away from
Speaker 1: where I lived in Lincoln Heights, right near Dodger Stadium
Speaker 1: to Long Beach. I go out to the ocean down there,
Speaker 1: have a great time. They've they've added a lot of
Speaker 1: rail lines since I lived there, But I don't live
Speaker 1: near that public transportation. And even if I did, at
Speaker 1: this point, I don't know that I would take it
Speaker 1: because things have not gotten better. They've gotten worse in
Speaker 1: terms of crime, and the fact that petty crime like
Speaker 1: robbing people of two items on a subway car, I
Speaker 1: don't think they prosecute that. So it's a criminals dream
Speaker 1: come true to to rip people off on those subway cars,
Speaker 1: which even when I was riding the years ago, happened
Speaker 1: a lot. I can't imagine what it's like now. But anyway,
Speaker 1: this is not about that this is about gas. So
Speaker 1: being in cal Fifornia, don't have a public transportation, that's great.
Speaker 1: That that is great rather and so you have to
Speaker 1: drive or else, which brings me to the rage of
Speaker 1: the week, the price of gas. This week, gas prices
Speaker 1: sword it was over four sixty a gallon, a record
Speaker 1: high and likely will only go higher. We are going
Speaker 1: to cross the five dollar threshold here before you know it.
Speaker 1: California has the highest gas prices in the country, up
Speaker 1: an average from of a dollar fifty a dollar fifty
Speaker 1: a gallon. It has gone up in general. Now I
Speaker 1: know the cost of living is out of control. I
Speaker 1: buy the groceries for the house and I look at
Speaker 1: the price of bread, the price of chicken and different
Speaker 1: items that I eat, and I'm like, holy crap. So
Speaker 1: they say gas, electricity, food, everything through the roof. I
Speaker 1: haven't missed anything this Joe Biden administration. They haven't missed anything.
Speaker 1: So the gas thing, though, that really is a pet peeve.
Speaker 1: It is completely out of control, and I would like
Speaker 1: to get into the reason now, the reason it's even
Speaker 1: more expensive in California. And this is a teachable moment,
Speaker 1: and I'm big on teachable moments. And so hopefully this
Speaker 1: will reston me. I feel like I'm preaching to the
Speaker 1: choir that if you listen to this podcast that we
Speaker 1: we we share a lot of the same views. I
Speaker 1: think that's probably the case, based on the fact that
Speaker 1: most people today, because of tribalism, only listen or consume
Speaker 1: media of people that are of a like mind. So
Speaker 1: this will likely fall on death ears because you already
Speaker 1: agree with me. But where I live, every couple of
Speaker 1: years they have a proposition on the ballot, and the
Speaker 1: proposition is to raise the gas tax by half a
Speaker 1: cent or less than half a cent, and that's it,
Speaker 1: and it'll fix all the roads, and everything will be great,
Speaker 1: and you're going to live in this amazing utopia. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be wonderful, Oh my god, the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Miller
Speaker 1: Show week days at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Speaker 1: And so, what happens every time one of these things
Speaker 1: pops up? People say, yes, it's only a cent or
Speaker 1: a half a cent or less than a half a cent.
Speaker 1: What kind of tight wad are you? What kind of
Speaker 1: of cheap skate are you? What about the roads? What
Speaker 1: about this, that and the other thing. Well, this is
Speaker 1: the results. Here, we are the result of all of
Speaker 1: those little gas increases. California. The state gas tax in
Speaker 1: California is over sixty cents per gallon. It is the
Speaker 1: highest the state gasoline tax per per state Cali. Fournia
Speaker 1: is numberrow number one with a bullet sixty three point
Speaker 1: one cents per gallon in California goes to pay for tax. Now,
Speaker 1: that is by far the most in the country, leaving
Speaker 1: everyone else in the dust. Only five states are over
Speaker 1: fifty cents a gallon. To give you a comparison on
Speaker 1: some states, we have a lot of Mallard militia. In Iowa,
Speaker 1: our friends in Iowa thirty cents again, so you're paying
Speaker 1: thirty three point one sense less per gallon in tax
Speaker 1: than in California. In Kansas, our friends in Kansas are
Speaker 1: typically the lowest states, with the exception of Florida, where
Speaker 1: their gas taxes pretty high. Pretty much all the other
Speaker 1: low tax states are in the southern part of the
Speaker 1: United States with except right, with a few exceptions that
Speaker 1: have sneaked in there. Now, do you know the lowest
Speaker 1: gas tax state? Just state gas tax? You know what
Speaker 1: that is You gotta you have a guest in your head,
Speaker 1: and they're fifty states. Go ahead. I could hear Marcel
Speaker 1: right now saying I think the the cheapest state for gas.
Speaker 1: Marcel would say is Zimbabwe or Uzbekistan or who? No. Uh,
Speaker 1: the correct answer is not a southern state. It is
Speaker 1: not a southern state. It is Alaska, Alaskans, the great
Speaker 1: White North North North, which I think of as Canadian
Speaker 1: land that happens to be using American currency. But but
Speaker 1: our friends in Alaska thirteen point eight cents per gallon,
Speaker 1: so they are almost fifty cents cheaper, forty nine cents
Speaker 1: cheaper than in California. Hawaii, another state far away from
Speaker 1: continental United States, forty point eight cents. And everything in
Speaker 1: Hawaii has to be shipped in right there, not producing
Speaker 1: gas in Hawaii, at least not to my knowledge. Now,
Speaker 1: the lowest gas tax in the entire continental United States,
Speaker 1: forget Hawaii and Alaska. Uh, the lowest gas tax is
Speaker 1: in Missouri. How about that? Here he goes a little
Speaker 1: bit of surprised. You're surprised by that, missoo, Missouri has
Speaker 1: the lowest gas tax seventeen point four cents in the
Speaker 1: continental United States. Now, keep in mind all of these numbers,
Speaker 1: all of these numbers on state gas tax totals does
Speaker 1: not include the federal gas tax of eighteen point four
Speaker 1: cents per gallon, So that means in California eighty one
Speaker 1: point five cents per gallon is on tax. It's almost
Speaker 1: a dollar a gallon. And as far as the state
Speaker 1: tax thing, I'd be okay paying fair attacks if all
Speaker 1: the roads were perfect and there were no potholes and
Speaker 1: everything was great. There's a lot of crappy roads considering
Speaker 1: how good the weather is in California. And I've driven
Speaker 1: around Boston a lot over the years, and some New
Speaker 1: York and some other cold cold weather places where it
Speaker 1: gets nasty and the roads get pretty beat up because
Speaker 1: they pour salt on the roads to clear the snow,
Speaker 1: and it's a hole to do. You don't have that
Speaker 1: in most of California. Outside the Mountain territory. It's not
Speaker 1: snowing in Santa Monica. There's no snowfall coming down in Oakland. Uh,
Speaker 1: this does not happen and on, you know, and once
Speaker 1: in a blue moon it happens. But yet the roads
Speaker 1: are pretty pretty messed up. So anyway, that's that's my rant.
Speaker 1: I just remember that the next time the gas tax
Speaker 1: thing comes up, and everyone, so, what would you not
Speaker 1: vote for the gas text? Okay, because this is the
Speaker 1: end game. This is the end game, is that you
Speaker 1: end up paying sixty three cents because you can't vote
Speaker 1: no on a proposition. And they also say these things
Speaker 1: often will only go for a limited amount of time,
Speaker 1: and you know, after a couple of years, we'll pull
Speaker 1: the gas tax away. And I don't recall, I don't
Speaker 1: recall that happening. I recall reading stories about politicians saying,
Speaker 1: we found a new use for that money. The revenue.
Speaker 1: They don't call it tax hack. Politicians call it revenue,
Speaker 1: so less less angry word. Revenue, right, revenue, they don't
Speaker 1: call that anyway. My goodness, my goodness. Well, we will
Speaker 1: put the baby to bed. Have a wonderful rest of
Speaker 1: your Saturday. We do have the mail back. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to listen to the Friday podcast, our interview podcast and
Speaker 1: one of my radio pals stopped by a long time friend.
Speaker 1: A weird friend though, because I've never actually met the
Speaker 1: person in real life. But anyway, you canna hear that
Speaker 1: and we'll catch you next time. Don't forget cameo dot com.
Speaker 1: Email the podcast if you would like to send us
Speaker 1: a question for a future mail bag. Very simple to
Speaker 1: send a message across. You can email the program Real
Speaker 1: Fifth Hour at gmail dot com. It's f I F
Speaker 1: T Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com and also
Speaker 1: on the Facebook page Ben Mallard shall like us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: follow me on there, and we will have all of that,
Speaker 1: all of that coming your way in future editions of
Speaker 1: The Fifth Hour. We'll catch you next time. Aloha and goodbye.