Speaker 1: Ka boom. If you thought four hours a day, 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 clearing house
Speaker 1: of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth
Speaker 1: Hour with Ben Maller starts right now. Shadow boxing. Well
Speaker 1: come man, the beginning of another edition of the Fifth
Speaker 1: Hour with Ben Maller. A heavy weight brew ha ha
Speaker 1: as I shadow box myself, flying solo yet again. I
Speaker 1: don't need no sticking sidekick. No no, no, no, no
Speaker 1: anyway coming up on this edition of The Fifth Hour,
Speaker 1: a spinoff of the Ben Maller radio show, only available
Speaker 1: in the podcast format and broadcasting from a secret location,
Speaker 1: a special podcast studio deep in the north Woods. As
Speaker 1: we get you started on a Saturday, we have the
Speaker 1: Green Team, The Green Team living like Brittney Spears and
Speaker 1: showcase what is that all about? You'll find out that
Speaker 1: and a whole lot more. Hold your applause, no need
Speaker 1: to clap, but we'll get the party started right now.
Speaker 1: And we promised the Green Team, so I came close
Speaker 1: to having to turn to fist the cuffs at Chavez Ravina. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've been listening to the radio show all week,
Speaker 1: you know that I was very fortunate enough. I got
Speaker 1: to spend some quality time at one of my five
Speaker 1: favorite places to hang out, a Major League baseball stadium,
Speaker 1: in particular, Dodger Stadium, where I've spent much of my
Speaker 1: life watching athletic competition. Now the Dodgers in the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Braves meeting in the National League Championship Series, and what
Speaker 1: a madhouse that me tell you, this was a madhouse
Speaker 1: this week. And I'll take you back to Game three
Speaker 1: of the analycs one of the highlights for the Dayers
Speaker 1: and I I had snack bar drama. I had snack
Speaker 1: bar drama. So I mentioned this on the radio show.
Speaker 1: But the great thing about the podcast is we have
Speaker 1: plenty of time to dive deep into a story and
Speaker 1: there is a lot to tell. This might seem like
Speaker 1: a simple story guy online at a snack bar to
Speaker 1: get some delicious treats, but it's much more than that.
Speaker 1: So I will give you the non condensed version of
Speaker 1: what happened. And if you're bored by stories like this,
Speaker 1: then just fast forward, no harm, no foul. But I'm
Speaker 1: might need my own business now. I'm waiting online, and
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of people that were consuming massive
Speaker 1: amounts of alcohol Bruskies, and that's what you do at
Speaker 1: a in the event, but not me. I'm working, right,
Speaker 1: I'm working, Benny, and I got my little press pass on,
Speaker 1: so I'm you know, I'll let you know a little
Speaker 1: inside radio. We're friends. Why not. If you're listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast, you are a higher level in the Mallem militias.
Speaker 1: So if you are in the media and you cover
Speaker 1: one of these playoff games, what Major League Baseball does
Speaker 1: is they give you a food voucher. In this case,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how it is in every city,
Speaker 1: but in Los Angeles they give you a fifteen dollar
Speaker 1: food voucher. So Major League Baseball in the old days,
Speaker 1: they used to supply a full boxed meal. But that
Speaker 1: costs too much money. And the people in charge, the billionaires,
Speaker 1: the aristocrats at Major League Baseball, We're like, oh, what
Speaker 1: are we doing here? Why are we spending all this
Speaker 1: money on apples and turkey sandwiches and bags of chips.
Speaker 1: That's a waste of money. So why don't we just
Speaker 1: hand these these people fifteen dollars and it's like a
Speaker 1: food stamps ticket. Okay, so fifteen dollars, now that sounds
Speaker 1: like a decent amount of money. At least when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, fifteen bucks was pretty good. As you know,
Speaker 1: if you attend sporting events in any city, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter whether you're in Los Angeles or not. That doesn't
Speaker 1: get very far. It does not get very far. And
Speaker 1: no discount. By the way, everything's marked up. It's not
Speaker 1: like they have a special rate, like an insider rate.
Speaker 1: And the one thing that professional sports has mastered more
Speaker 1: than anything else price gouging personified. Right, it is insane.
Speaker 1: You can take a drink which is some syrup and
Speaker 1: some water, maybe a little ice, which is just frozen
Speaker 1: water and some sugar and whatnot, and that costs the
Speaker 1: people that make the drink, you know, maybe ten cents,
Speaker 1: twenty cents, thirty cents, whatever it is, fifty cents you
Speaker 1: want to go high, and we'll charge four bucks for
Speaker 1: that bottle of water, right, bottle of water. You can
Speaker 1: get a whole case of water at Costco for a
Speaker 1: very reasonable amount, but at a ballpark, five bucks ten bucks.
Speaker 1: You want to a little souvenir batting helmet filled with
Speaker 1: garlic fries, that'll set you back like fifteen sixteen bucks
Speaker 1: something like that. So, um, the way this works the
Speaker 1: food stamp let you again behind the curtain, how we
Speaker 1: make the hotdogs. So you are giving a food voucher,
Speaker 1: you have to spend it or lose it. No cash back.
Speaker 1: So if your order comes to eight dollars, you don't
Speaker 1: get the rest of that, and you can't reuse that
Speaker 1: somewhere else. It's one shot, shoot your shot, and that's it. Now,
Speaker 1: what I have done over the years that I have mastered,
Speaker 1: I look at the menu. I've mastered how to get
Speaker 1: the most I can possibly get without going over. And
Speaker 1: I have scouted the different snack bars at Dodger Stadium,
Speaker 1: and it changes every year because of the cost of
Speaker 1: all this another, prices have gone up over the years,
Speaker 1: and the Dodgers seemingly in the playoffs every year. So
Speaker 1: I've had to deal with this for for a long time.
Speaker 1: So what I have settled on my order is not one,
Speaker 1: but two soft pretzels and a plastic cup, small plastic
Speaker 1: cup of nacho cheese, not your cheese. Is my cheese.
Speaker 1: So that sets me back a grand total of thirteen
Speaker 1: dollars and nineties six cents. I believe with tax is
Speaker 1: how much that costs. So that's as close as I
Speaker 1: have been able to get to the full fifteen dollar
Speaker 1: amount without getting over. One time they charged me for
Speaker 1: two cheese cups and that put me over at sixteen
Speaker 1: dollars and said, I said, I only want one. Take
Speaker 1: back your little cheese cup. I don't want that. But
Speaker 1: I do love soft pretzels. It's one of my guilty pleasures,
Speaker 1: a well made soft pretzel. And I will tell you
Speaker 1: they do not have great soft pretzels at Dodgers Stadium.
Speaker 1: They don't. I've had much better pretzels at in in Boston,
Speaker 1: in New York, Philadelphia, which is the mecca, as our
Speaker 1: guy Fats in Philly tells us, the birthplace of the pretzel,
Speaker 1: the soft pretzel, and we also had the late Philly
Speaker 1: Rob who was a pretzel benefactor as well. But that's
Speaker 1: that's the gold standard. I love those big pretzels, and
Speaker 1: they've gotta be soft. You know the problem I've had,
Speaker 1: it's hit and miss. At Dodger Stadium, the pretzels sometimes
Speaker 1: they leave them in those little rotating things and they
Speaker 1: are like rocks, and that sucks and you can't return it, right,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no returns, so you're it's it's whatever.
Speaker 1: It's Russian Roulette with the pretzels. But I do the
Speaker 1: other presils now, regardless of I get to the point. Please.
Speaker 1: So I'm online. I'm minding my peas and cues. BOYD,
Speaker 1: did I get sidetracked? So I'm minding my pas and
Speaker 1: cues and people are ordering alcohol whatever. They're ordering hot dogs,
Speaker 1: you know it, garlic fries, and some drunk dude and
Speaker 1: his buddy start and going on, you know, going off
Speaker 1: on me. They start harassing me. They're all over me
Speaker 1: for not wearing the proper wardrobe that I did not
Speaker 1: have the Dodger gear. And I am surrounded in a
Speaker 1: sea of people in Dodger blue. And there were a
Speaker 1: few Atlanta Brave fans, but not many, not many. And
Speaker 1: I have a feeling there were some Braves fans that
Speaker 1: didn't wear their colors because they heard the reputation of
Speaker 1: the parking lots at Dodger stating. So I had a
Speaker 1: green shirt on, I had my newsboy hat, which is
Speaker 1: what I usually wear when I go out to cover
Speaker 1: my receding hairline. So and then and then I, you know,
Speaker 1: it's doing my thing, waiting online to get my soft
Speaker 1: pretzels and my cup of cheese. And this one dude
Speaker 1: was enraged and became engaged with me. Again, I'm just
Speaker 1: right there, and this guy is getting on. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Dodger fan, were your colors? Man? Why didn't
Speaker 1: you wear your colors right? And I'm like, well, I'm just,
Speaker 1: you know, waiting for my food. I tried. I tried
Speaker 1: to not respond, but the guy that got right in
Speaker 1: my face, and I'm like, all right, you know, I
Speaker 1: just I just want to get and and I didn't say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm in the media. I'm better than you. But I
Speaker 1: had a media pass and it said media on it.
Speaker 1: So the fact that I didn't really respond to the
Speaker 1: guy and just kind of blew them off that upset
Speaker 1: him more. So. Now this is an escalation situation. So
Speaker 1: now the guy's like, wait a minute, you're wearing green.
Speaker 1: Are you a Celtic fan? He asked me if I'm
Speaker 1: a Celtic fan. And at this point I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: should I tell him that I've done radio in Boston
Speaker 1: for you know, over the years, off and on, and
Speaker 1: I actually own a Celtics hat, and as a Laker hater,
Speaker 1: I have great pride of the Celtics because the Celtics
Speaker 1: have caused a lot of agony to my friends who
Speaker 1: are Laker fans, not really recently, but over the years historically.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, probably not best for me
Speaker 1: to bring that up, So I shouldn't say that rare
Speaker 1: and appropriate you bring that up at Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: about the time that this is starting, the skyrocket and
Speaker 1: tensions are being ratcheted up. I was able to squeeze
Speaker 1: to the front of the line and these bozos skidaddled.
Speaker 1: They got a guy on their way and it was
Speaker 1: their lucky day. By the way, let me tell you.
Speaker 1: You might think I'm just a fat, middle aged overnight
Speaker 1: talk your host, but I would have introduced them to
Speaker 1: my little friends. I have an alter ego. I don't
Speaker 1: talk about it very much. Do not endorse violence, but
Speaker 1: when needed, you can call me Benny Bloody Knuckles. Benny
Speaker 1: Bloody Knuckles, you can call me that. It's true. Listen,
Speaker 1: I'm a pretty mellow guy. I like to goof around,
Speaker 1: have a good time. But I build up like a
Speaker 1: volcano and hot molten lava goes flying when I become enraged.
Speaker 1: That's how That's how I wrote. There's some people that
Speaker 1: are mad all the time and just blow offs team
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't do that regularly. I just every
Speaker 1: once in a while. That's just how how it goes.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying there. But as far as
Speaker 1: the Dodger Games, it was great to see my old friends,
Speaker 1: as I always say, And Roberto is there who I
Speaker 1: don't see all the time. I'm in the home studio
Speaker 1: a lot lead a Lap the producer of the morning show.
Speaker 1: He was on hand. I know a lot of the
Speaker 1: older crowd that used to when I was in the
Speaker 1: back in the day. They be the ushers at Dodgers
Speaker 1: Dad and a few of those people left lifers at
Speaker 1: Dodger Stadium. So I was able to come across some
Speaker 1: of those people and it was a good time, a
Speaker 1: good time and just being at the ballpark and the
Speaker 1: Oregon and that that that that that that that that
Speaker 1: that that that that that that that that that that
Speaker 1: I ran into Tom Looney. Tom Looney, he's the news
Speaker 1: guy now my old partner Louis, we've had Looney on
Speaker 1: the podcast, and the Looney who gave me the single
Speaker 1: worst piece of financial advice that I have ever gotten
Speaker 1: in my life came from Tom Loony. I don't need
Speaker 1: to go into the story right now. I had saved
Speaker 1: up my money for a long time. I'll give you
Speaker 1: the condensed version. I'd saved up my money for a
Speaker 1: long time. And I was debating. There was a place
Speaker 1: a condo I was looking at in in downtown l A.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: the right spot. It's in the crappy neighborhoods in Lincoln Heights.
Speaker 1: And Looney's like, well, they're gonna fix it up, and
Speaker 1: and I told him, I said, well, I keep reading
Speaker 1: in the business papers that the housing market is going
Speaker 1: to go down. And Looney gave me this big pep
Speaker 1: talk and he's like, no, no, no, no, no no, now,
Speaker 1: so don't worry about that. You know, they're always gonna
Speaker 1: say this kind of thing. If you find a place
Speaker 1: you like, just get it, you know. He was trying
Speaker 1: to tell me it was a way to go. And
Speaker 1: so I purchased a house and a couple of months
Speaker 1: after I purchased the house. Yeah, Call Boom goes to
Speaker 1: the housing market, and it was nice to see Loony.
Speaker 1: That is the first time I have seen Tom Looney
Speaker 1: in person. And we used to work together every weekend
Speaker 1: for years. For seven years, I think we did that
Speaker 1: show on the weekends. I can't believe it lasted that long.
Speaker 1: If you ever heard, if you ever heard the show,
Speaker 1: then you would know that show was not long for
Speaker 1: the world. But eventually that yeah, that did happen at
Speaker 1: the end, Eventually that that took place. Anyway, I caught
Speaker 1: up with Loony, hadn't seen him since the COVID thing started.
Speaker 1: He's the same old Looney. Spends way too much time
Speaker 1: in the gym, way too much time in the gym,
Speaker 1: but Tan gets a lot of sun and he's doing
Speaker 1: news radio. If you want to hear I'm Looney on
Speaker 1: the weekends. He is a news guy at k A
Speaker 1: b C. At one point, k ABC, which is a
Speaker 1: news talk station, was the top money making station in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles when I first got into radio. It was
Speaker 1: after k ABC. It had their glory days and k
Speaker 1: f I is the big am talk station and it's
Speaker 1: been that way for years, but k ABC back in
Speaker 1: the day was where everyone went and that was the
Speaker 1: talk station in Los Angeles. Not quite anymore. But Looney
Speaker 1: is doing a doing a good job and it's good
Speaker 1: to catch up. He does a podcast with JT the
Speaker 1: Brick as well, So we were telling some stories there
Speaker 1: about the old days. And every time I see Looney
Speaker 1: at a baseball game, at some point in the conversation
Speaker 1: it has happened. One of the time, the four run
Speaker 1: home run will come up. So this goes back to
Speaker 1: when we were doing The Blitz, and The Blitz was
Speaker 1: a football show, but it was pretty popular and we
Speaker 1: had a following for a Sunday afternoon show, and so
Speaker 1: management at the time was very supportive of the show.
Speaker 1: They eventually grew to hated. Uh well, management changed. The
Speaker 1: new management hated it, but the original management loved it,
Speaker 1: and so we did the show for a while on
Speaker 1: during football and they're like, well, the show is good,
Speaker 1: why didn't do baseball? So like, all right, we'll do baseball.
Speaker 1: But baseball is a lot different than football. There's football
Speaker 1: is pretty easy right Sunday, there's ebbs and flows kind
Speaker 1: of updated football game. Baseball is a little harder because
Speaker 1: their games are longer and there's more moving parts. And
Speaker 1: so anyway, the Red Sox, I still remember it was
Speaker 1: a game at Finway, Red Sox or Plan whoever, doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But the Red Sox had a big offensive day and
Speaker 1: they had a guy named Jared salt Lemachia, who I
Speaker 1: believe still has the record for the longest surname in
Speaker 1: Big League history, at least he did at the time.
Speaker 1: He did at the time. So anyway, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: So random Sunday in the summertime, and we're updating the scores,
Speaker 1: and the Red Sox had a big day, going offensively,
Speaker 1: and Jared Saltamakia hits a Grand Slam. Get out the
Speaker 1: rye bread and the mustard, Grandma, it's Grand Salami time.
Speaker 1: So we got all excited. We got all these monitors,
Speaker 1: the games are on it. Anytime something happens, we're like,
Speaker 1: we Grand Slam. Except Tom Looney the first person in
Speaker 1: the history of radio saying the following words, Jared salta
Speaker 1: Lomakia just hit a four run home run, which wall
Speaker 1: technically true, Well technically true, is not the proper etiquette,
Speaker 1: all right, It's yeah, that was wrong, I mean and Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta be better than that, right. I know your
Speaker 1: name is Looney, and when you're loony, can you have
Speaker 1: a little more freedom there? But that was not proper.
Speaker 1: So anytime after that someone would hit a grand slam,
Speaker 1: which is the professional term that is used. But anytime
Speaker 1: someone would do that after either on the air or
Speaker 1: off the air, there's a four run home run right there?
Speaker 1: Four run home run up? All right, all right, okay,
Speaker 1: calm down, I'll move on. So living like Brittany Spears,
Speaker 1: what is this all about? Life of Mallard Tales of Woe,
Speaker 1: Episode four. Oops, I did it again. I've noticed, and
Speaker 1: several of you have pointed out via email that many
Speaker 1: of my stories revolve around Costco. And if Costco we're
Speaker 1: to go out of business, or if I were to
Speaker 1: stop going to Costco, I wouldn't have any stories. So
Speaker 1: this story revolves around a couple of things. Now, I
Speaker 1: had to get gas. I religiously go to Costco. I
Speaker 1: tried to get there early in the morning the gas
Speaker 1: because I don't have to wait online. I don't like
Speaker 1: waiting online for gas. There's always a long line at Costco.
Speaker 1: So if you go in the morning or when it closes,
Speaker 1: there's no line, So I got my gas. I actually
Speaker 1: happened to go in the evening time, so I did
Speaker 1: wait online a little bit, and then I had to
Speaker 1: stop by the main store, the big box store, and
Speaker 1: you had to get water some snacks. I parked the car. Okay,
Speaker 1: just bear with me on this. So I parked the
Speaker 1: car and I walk into the front of the store
Speaker 1: as you would normally do right this normal night, by myself.
Speaker 1: My wife was at home. She's still unpacking. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be unpacking things still the way things are going. So
Speaker 1: my wife's doing her thing, and I was She's like, hey,
Speaker 1: can you run some errands? So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll run some errands. Why not make myself useful. So
Speaker 1: I got the gas. I had to buy some stuff
Speaker 1: at Costmas. She text me shopping list. I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty normal in a marriage relationship. Somebody sends you a
Speaker 1: shopping list. So I'm strolling in and I grab my
Speaker 1: Costco credit card and I hold it up to the
Speaker 1: young lady at the front there, and as you know,
Speaker 1: it's my ticket to enter, It's my golden ticket. So
Speaker 1: I'm checking off things on my list right I'm checking off,
Speaker 1: and my shopping cart is almost all full of what
Speaker 1: I needed. And as I am walking by the meat section,
Speaker 1: I still remember where I was. I was looking for
Speaker 1: thin cut ribbi because thin cut ribby is the steak
Speaker 1: that is used in Philly cheesesteak, and you can buy
Speaker 1: it at Costco. It's not cheap. The Costco near where
Speaker 1: I live in the north Woods. You can buy this
Speaker 1: and it makes amazing Philly cheesesteak. Uh. And it's just
Speaker 1: wonderful and everything so thin cut and just melts in
Speaker 1: your mouth. It's great. I highly recommended. So then I
Speaker 1: had this ah ha moment and it wasn't about the
Speaker 1: ribbi sneake, and I'm I'm like, something's not right here,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, what the hell is going on?
Speaker 1: Like what what is it? And so I I'm holding
Speaker 1: my phone, so obviously is my phone missing? Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's no problem with my phone. So I'm like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: what else is going on here? So then I reached
Speaker 1: for the keys. I do an inventory here and I
Speaker 1: see the keys are there, so there's nothing going on
Speaker 1: with the keys, so everything's good. And then I reached
Speaker 1: down from my wallet and red light starts, flashing red
Speaker 1: light starts. So I had checked on the phone, I
Speaker 1: had check on the keys. No wallet, So I put
Speaker 1: my hand in my pocket, and for some reason, I
Speaker 1: had my Costco credit card that I had used to
Speaker 1: get in the store. So now I'm trying to retrace
Speaker 1: my steps. I'm thinking, well, I must have dropped my
Speaker 1: wallet somewhere in the store. Originally my original thought was,
Speaker 1: I you know what might have happened is when I
Speaker 1: got gas, I just left the wallet on the passenger
Speaker 1: seat in the mallarmobile, and then I just grabbed the
Speaker 1: credit card and walked in. For some reason, I thought
Speaker 1: I had left it in the front seat of the car.
Speaker 1: So what I did was I left a cart full
Speaker 1: of food and different things off to the side of
Speaker 1: Costco and I go warp speed. I went warp speed.
Speaker 1: I ski dattled to the car. I retraced my steps.
Speaker 1: I have visions of someone breaking into the car seeing
Speaker 1: my my wallet. I have a Castanza wallet, seeing my
Speaker 1: wallet there and saying to ching to change change. So
Speaker 1: I'm doing the hustle. I'm doing the hustle. I get
Speaker 1: out of the store, I go through the parking lot,
Speaker 1: I get to my car, and then there's the moment
Speaker 1: of truth and I slowly walk up to the car
Speaker 1: and I look at the passenger seat through the window.
Speaker 1: It's a nighttime situation so that it can't see everything,
Speaker 1: and I peek around the side there and I see
Speaker 1: right there nothing. I see absolutely nothing, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what the heck am I That had
Speaker 1: to and it had to it had to be there,
Speaker 1: but no, it wasn't. It wasn't there. So I'm like, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: then I opened the door. I thought, well, maybe it
Speaker 1: fell out in the area when I got out of
Speaker 1: the car and I looked down and I see nothing again.
Speaker 1: So now i'mnna starting I start feeling around here. I
Speaker 1: started feeling around and trying to figure out what's going on,
Speaker 1: and okay, maybe time to the seat. Nothing. So now
Speaker 1: at this point I have to do the walk of
Speaker 1: shame back to Costco. Maybe I dropped it in the
Speaker 1: store somewhere. So again I'm retracing my steps and I'm
Speaker 1: looking around. My head is down. I'm depressed. I go
Speaker 1: through the parking lot, I get to the door. I
Speaker 1: walked through the door and I'm looking around and I'm like,
Speaker 1: where is it? Where is my wallet? Where is the
Speaker 1: Castanza wallet? I need the wallet? Where is the wallet?
Speaker 1: So I'm looking around, looking around, and this the lady
Speaker 1: at the door there and the nice woman. She sees
Speaker 1: me in a panic, and she says, hey, did you
Speaker 1: lose something? And at that point I said, oops, I
Speaker 1: did it again, just like my hero Brittney spears, just like,
Speaker 1: that's right. And sure enough, my wallet had fallen out
Speaker 1: of my pocket at the entrance of Costco. In the
Speaker 1: transition when I put the credit card back in my
Speaker 1: pocket and it was not in the wallet. The wallet
Speaker 1: fell out, the credit card stage in the pocket, and
Speaker 1: the lady there, very nice woman, she kept the wallet
Speaker 1: in in the little booth thing that she had at
Speaker 1: the front of Costco. So this is now the second time,
Speaker 1: if you're keeping score at home, that I've told a
Speaker 1: similar story. The second time in the last calendar year
Speaker 1: that this has happened. Now both times I had a
Speaker 1: guardian angel. Last time was at a different grocery store,
Speaker 1: this time at Costco, and my wallet got back to me,
Speaker 1: and yet again I tried to offer a reward for
Speaker 1: finding my wallet. This was very important to me. Right
Speaker 1: when you want to pay in the acid is lose
Speaker 1: your wallet and when you find your wallet, it's a
Speaker 1: big deal. And yet again the woman said, thank you
Speaker 1: very much, I can't accept your money. Costco will not
Speaker 1: allow me to accept your money. And I said, well, now,
Speaker 1: just you know no one's paying attention, they won't know
Speaker 1: about I won't tell anybody. And she says, no, I
Speaker 1: can't do that. We're not allowed company policy. So I
Speaker 1: tell my wife the story. My wife then says that
Speaker 1: I should now offer more money. She thinks that's my move.
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna offer more money because I know I've
Speaker 1: now had this happen twice where I've lost my wallet,
Speaker 1: so she knows I'll lose it again. And she said,
Speaker 1: next time this happens, you're gonna offer more money because
Speaker 1: you know they can't accept the money. I said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that, and I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: I told her. I said, I'm not doing that because,
Speaker 1: knowing my luck, it's going to turn. I can't continue
Speaker 1: to have this kind of good fortune. At some point,
Speaker 1: the guardian angel is gonna take a nap, and so
Speaker 1: I said no, because Murphy's Law says that the person
Speaker 1: I offer a thousand dollars to Will say, you know what,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll take the money and can you send
Speaker 1: me some duffel bags of cash? Can you do that?
Speaker 1: And so so you know, I'm not increasing the dollar amount.
Speaker 1: That is not going to happen. Not going to happen,
Speaker 1: all right, Moving on now to the Showcase Showdown. If
Speaker 1: you listen to these podcasts during the weekend, boy, do
Speaker 1: we think that's number one? Tele a friend, tell a
Speaker 1: friend you know. On Friday, we typically have someone on
Speaker 1: the podcast who we like. We had a close friend
Speaker 1: in the radio business on Friday this Friday, I hope
Speaker 1: you heard that. And today on Saturday is typically tales
Speaker 1: from my life, like losing my wallet at Costco, having
Speaker 1: a guy trying to get into a fight with me
Speaker 1: because I wasn't wearing a Dodger jersey at a game
Speaker 1: and you're not allowed to do that. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to go through all that, you know in the media,
Speaker 1: as I said, you you gotta dress the part. No
Speaker 1: cheering in the press box, blah blah blah blah. So
Speaker 1: I had a green shirt on. Guy got upset thought
Speaker 1: I was a Celtic fan, which the Clippers on my team,
Speaker 1: but the Celtics. As I said, the Laker rivalry over
Speaker 1: the years and being a Laker hater, I I do
Speaker 1: have a a bit of I don't want to say
Speaker 1: green envy, but there's some some joy in there. But
Speaker 1: the Sunday Podcast, which is appropbably enough, on Sunday, we
Speaker 1: typically just do mail. We answer your questions, and that
Speaker 1: will be no different. We'll have the mail bag with
Speaker 1: your questions tomorrow. But I wanted to highlight one email
Speaker 1: in particular because I want to give it more time
Speaker 1: than we have on the mail bag. The mailbags typically
Speaker 1: rat a tat tat we go through the mail we
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of time. So in this debut,
Speaker 1: the maiden voyage of the showcase portion of the Saturday Podcast,
Speaker 1: we'll see if we do this more often, if we
Speaker 1: get really good email that really you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I see really a lot but needs to stand out,
Speaker 1: then we'll keep it. And if the reaction to this
Speaker 1: is just terrible, and if that's going on, I hear
Speaker 1: that noise and I'll be like, all right, there's a
Speaker 1: sign I better stop doing this. But this email this
Speaker 1: week comes from Hajji. He says that is his Silent
Speaker 1: Militia name, Hajji writes, and he says, I love the
Speaker 1: Ben Maller Show and I have listened to it as
Speaker 1: a podcast every day since I discovered it three years ago.
Speaker 1: How great is that? And he says, here's the part
Speaker 1: that should make me part of the Silent Mallard Militia. Now,
Speaker 1: Haji says, when I am not listening to your most
Speaker 1: recent show, I go back to listen to old episodes
Speaker 1: that I haven't heard before. He says, I'm currently listening
Speaker 1: and working my way through seventeen. I can't believe k
Speaker 1: D's leaving the Warriors. Wow, let me stop right there.
Speaker 1: He hit the pause button. So Hagi, first of all,
Speaker 1: thank you. I appreciate you listening to the show more
Speaker 1: than you know. And you are the first listener I
Speaker 1: can remember. And maybe it's happened in the past and
Speaker 1: I don't remember it. I've blocked it out, but you
Speaker 1: are the first person I can recall going back and
Speaker 1: listening to dated material. In sports radio, what we do
Speaker 1: is time sensitive. There is an expiration date on it.
Speaker 1: It does not last. It's not evergreen. If it was evergreen,
Speaker 1: music is evergreen. You make a song in your garage
Speaker 1: when you're eighteen years old. They're seventeen years old. You're
Speaker 1: still playing that song when you're fifty or sixty or
Speaker 1: seventy or eighty. Like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles
Speaker 1: and the ones that made it, you're still making it.
Speaker 1: Sports radio disposable form of entertainment. Whatever the story of
Speaker 1: the day is. We talk about and then we move
Speaker 1: on and for you to go back and listen. And
Speaker 1: I'm surprised those are still aailable, those old podcasts are
Speaker 1: still available. I wonder how far back the library of
Speaker 1: audio content is. Because I've been at this company. You
Speaker 1: could go back and hear early shows that I did
Speaker 1: from the early two thousands. I'm pretty confident those do
Speaker 1: not exist anymore. Those have been erased from the history books.
Speaker 1: But seventeen that's that's a while ago. Now, all right,
Speaker 1: that's a while ago. All right. Anyway, says my fifth
Speaker 1: hour question. This is from listener Hadji in the showcase,
Speaker 1: the email showcase portion of the Saturday podcasts. So he says,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could talk about the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes business of sports talk radio on one of
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Well, congratulations, Hodging. This is the podcast. He says,
Speaker 1: for example, who decides whether a radio show has a
Speaker 1: single host or multiple host such as your show versus
Speaker 1: Jason Smith and Mike Harmon. Do the bosses pair the
Speaker 1: host up or do the host apply together to do
Speaker 1: a show? Let me hit the pause button again. So
Speaker 1: the way this works, we all have bosses. I'm no different.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of red tape at big radio stations
Speaker 1: where are syndicated networks, so there's a lot of management.
Speaker 1: There are two main bosses that I deal with, but
Speaker 1: there's layers below that that I don't have to deal with.
Speaker 1: So the way we do business not to let all
Speaker 1: the secrets out, but it's pretty standard. I've worked at
Speaker 1: different radio stations, is pretty much the same. The program
Speaker 1: director is the one that decides which shows are on
Speaker 1: the radio and whether or not that show is a
Speaker 1: one man show or two man show, And it really
Speaker 1: is preference. Some program directors like the two man show,
Speaker 1: some like the one man show. It just depends on it.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you that the business is pretty
Speaker 1: much shifted to two people at a time. I am
Speaker 1: one of the few guys that just as a solo act.
Speaker 1: There's a few, but you know, you look at our
Speaker 1: our station, our network, Fox, Colin Cowards a one man act,
Speaker 1: but he's got you know, he's got a lot of
Speaker 1: help on that. Dan Patrick technically a one man show,
Speaker 1: but the dan Ets so not a one man show.
Speaker 1: Morning show. Our morning show has a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of people, right. Jonas has got a couple of
Speaker 1: guys with him that former NFL players and in LaVar
Speaker 1: Arrington and Quinn. So they do that and then you
Speaker 1: go through the rest of the day and you've got
Speaker 1: Rob Parker, know what, Gottlie does a solo show, but
Speaker 1: he has a lot of people around him, uh that
Speaker 1: help out. And so so it's it's each time slot
Speaker 1: is its own entity. And there are radio shows that
Speaker 1: work together and change stations together. It is much more
Speaker 1: difficult to do that. It's much more difficult. I gave
Speaker 1: I was not I did give the US. I was
Speaker 1: given some great advice from Rick D's. You might not
Speaker 1: know who Ricky's is. He was a big fin deal
Speaker 1: in the radio business. When I got started. Ricky's had
Speaker 1: the number one morning show at Kiss FM one or
Speaker 1: two point seven Kiss FM, The D's sleeves in the morning.
Speaker 1: Rick dominated morning drive radio and made a fortune. He
Speaker 1: had a syndicated television show. He did the weekly Top
Speaker 1: forty Countdown. He was a big deal in the radio business.
Speaker 1: And Rick was the one of the nicest people I've
Speaker 1: ever met. And I was a young guy, had worked
Speaker 1: in San Diego. I got transferred to the l A station.
Speaker 1: They were just starting Kiss Am, which became Extra Sports
Speaker 1: eleven fifty which is now the Patriot, and the sports
Speaker 1: station moved over to a M five seventy in the
Speaker 1: l A market. Anyway, I was doing the midday show.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, I was Midday Mallard. The Ben
Speaker 1: and Dave show was on midday's and so anyway DS
Speaker 1: would come in. He was recording his Top forty show
Speaker 1: or other content for the morning show, and he would
Speaker 1: come in and just drop by and smile and say
Speaker 1: hello and ask how we were doing. And occasionally he
Speaker 1: would drop some wisdom. And there was one point we
Speaker 1: were not sure whether our show would make it or not,
Speaker 1: and I asked Rick these some career advice. And Rick
Speaker 1: knew that it was a two man operation, and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, listen, I'm sure you like working with with Dave.
Speaker 1: Who you're with this is a guy named Dave Smith.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure Dave you like working with Ben. But
Speaker 1: my experience, and this is a guy at the very
Speaker 1: top at the time in the radio business, was that
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a job, he said, it's better
Speaker 1: flying solo, because it's hard enough to get one job
Speaker 1: in radio, but to get a program director to hire
Speaker 1: two people, good luck, good luck on that. Uh And
Speaker 1: and how back to the email, he says, how do
Speaker 1: they decide the time slot for a show? Well, again,
Speaker 1: there's a pecking order. It's the program director along with
Speaker 1: a group of people called consultants, and they all get
Speaker 1: together and I don't know what they do, but they
Speaker 1: throw darts and they figure out who goes where. It's
Speaker 1: a big puzzle board. It's putting jigsaw puzzle pieces onto
Speaker 1: a puzzle and putting them all together and making it work.
Speaker 1: And he also says, does the time slot come first
Speaker 1: and then they pick a show or do they pick
Speaker 1: the show first and then decide the time slot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the way this works is it's the show that
Speaker 1: fits the time slot. It's not the other way around.
Speaker 1: They don't just hire talk shows and then say they
Speaker 1: go in the time slot. It's what show is appropriate
Speaker 1: for the time slot, and it's tilted. For example, the
Speaker 1: way the radio business works, you matter if you're on
Speaker 1: six am to six pm. That's when most people listen
Speaker 1: to the radio, six am to six pm. That includes
Speaker 1: morning drive, midday, afternoon drive. Any time after that, you
Speaker 1: are marginalized. You're not that important to people in radio.
Speaker 1: You're just not. And I love my job, and I
Speaker 1: have a lot of great things about the job. I
Speaker 1: don't have too much traffic. Of course, now I'm doing
Speaker 1: the show from home, so I have no traffic most
Speaker 1: of the time unless the rare and appropriate time that
Speaker 1: I come in to the studio, so I've got the
Speaker 1: radio show from home. I don't deal with the bosses
Speaker 1: very much because when they're at work, I'm sleeping, so
Speaker 1: I don't have to deal with that. But financially, they
Speaker 1: don't pay the overnight guy as much as the daytime people.
Speaker 1: And so there is a give and take with anything
Speaker 1: in life, within any of your life. Also, Haji says,
Speaker 1: how do they decide to replace the show when the
Speaker 1: host leaves like Clay Travis without kick and two pros
Speaker 1: and a cup of Joe. So again, it's it is
Speaker 1: a collaborative effort. It is decided by the programming people
Speaker 1: at our company. At Fox Sports Radio, Don Martin and
Speaker 1: Scott Shapiro are the top two guys, and then they
Speaker 1: have people around them. They have bosses themselves they have
Speaker 1: to deal with They have a bunch of red tape
Speaker 1: with consultants and everyone's chiming in. They have to worry
Speaker 1: about what show can they sell, what will make the
Speaker 1: most money for the company. I mean, how much money
Speaker 1: is the show going to cost. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: moving parts, a lot of spinning plates with that, as
Speaker 1: you might imagine, any job has these type of things.
Speaker 1: He also says, are there auditions behind the scene. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: there are people that, do you know, send in tapes
Speaker 1: not tapes anymore, it's digital stuff. And there are also
Speaker 1: some dry runs where they'll put so and so in
Speaker 1: a studio with somebody else who they think will sound good,
Speaker 1: and they will throw them together and see if the
Speaker 1: show clicks, see if there's some kind of audio match,
Speaker 1: and decide at that point, and it is the boss's
Speaker 1: decision there. He says, is there a pecking order set
Speaker 1: ahead of time? Next host up? Not always? Not always.
Speaker 1: I was the bride's maid. For many years, I did
Speaker 1: weekend overnights. I was next in line for a day
Speaker 1: part and it did not happen for nine years. Over
Speaker 1: nine years, I did weekend overnights before I finally got
Speaker 1: the weekday show. And then I got whacked from that
Speaker 1: job after a year and then brought back six months
Speaker 1: in twenty six days later. And Hog also says, but
Speaker 1: you're going in depth here on this email. He says,
Speaker 1: how do radio contracts work, Well, it really depends on
Speaker 1: the host, It depends on the station, the format. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of variables with the radio contract. Typically
Speaker 1: they are anywhere from one to three year contracts. There's
Speaker 1: usually a lot of offset language in the contracts. I
Speaker 1: can't give that information out because I'd be violating my contract.
Speaker 1: But with any contract, there's a lot of fine print
Speaker 1: at the bottom that typically protects the employee er and
Speaker 1: not the employee as much. That's just how most businesses work,
Speaker 1: and so that's that's not a surprise. He also says,
Speaker 1: how long are they as I said, one to three years?
Speaker 1: And how do they handle time off? Do you get
Speaker 1: paid time off? He says, wow, look at this, do
Speaker 1: they have buyouts in other ways to end them early.
Speaker 1: And again it depends on the contract. I do get
Speaker 1: paid time off. I do not take most of my
Speaker 1: time off. I don't do that. And the reason I
Speaker 1: don't do that two reasons. I'm a workaholic. That's one reason.
Speaker 1: The second reason. The key to to audience retention in
Speaker 1: radio is being there and my experience from being in
Speaker 1: the business. And I tell people who ask me this
Speaker 1: young broadcasters who are the next generation, I can't believe
Speaker 1: I'm saying that, but I tell people who are interested
Speaker 1: in the business, I say, the key to this is
Speaker 1: being like a sofa. You have to be the sofa.
Speaker 1: Now what do I mean by that? Let me explain.
Speaker 1: So the sofa is there when you need it. It's
Speaker 1: also there when you don't need it. But if you
Speaker 1: go into a room and you want to sit on
Speaker 1: the sofa and there's no sofa there, and maybe there's
Speaker 1: a shitty chair, you're not gonna like that. And that's
Speaker 1: the way radio is. Radio and the person If you
Speaker 1: like a show, and and that's a big thing that
Speaker 1: gets somebody to like you, you know how hard that is.
Speaker 1: You have so many freaking options to listen to and
Speaker 1: to listen to my fat ass. And so the way
Speaker 1: I look at this, you gotta be there. You gotta
Speaker 1: be the sofa. You might not listen to me. Maybe
Speaker 1: you only work a couple of days a week, and
Speaker 1: I'm there every night. I got the weekend podcast. But
Speaker 1: I gotta be there when you need me. That's the
Speaker 1: way I look at that. And maybe I'm wrong and
Speaker 1: I'm dumb and all that. My wife tells me I
Speaker 1: should take take a hell of a lot more time off,
Speaker 1: and I do have some family events that I will
Speaker 1: be taking some time off for, but I try to
Speaker 1: make it rare and appropriate. Again, one of a praise
Speaker 1: the phrases I use a lot. But it's very important
Speaker 1: to be there. And that's how you keep an audience,
Speaker 1: and that's how you keep people engaged and you keep
Speaker 1: people interested. And if you're not there, there's there's a
Speaker 1: line Jim Rome had and Jim's a legend in the business.
Speaker 1: And I'm not mocking Jim, but Jim is legendary for
Speaker 1: taking a lot of vacation time as well. And he
Speaker 1: used to say, well, I take a lot of vacation
Speaker 1: because I get a lot of vacation and that's true.
Speaker 1: I get a lot of vacation to considering the backbreaking
Speaker 1: work of having to talk for a living, but it
Speaker 1: feels more are important to be there. I don't even
Speaker 1: like taking time off over the holidays. I typically save.
Speaker 1: I have to take a certain number of days every year,
Speaker 1: so I typically save that till the week between Christmas
Speaker 1: and New Year's and that's that's standard when I take
Speaker 1: my time up. Anyway, we've gone very very long here,
Speaker 1: very long, bad job by me, So I will now,
Speaker 1: all right, I calm down, I will do that right now,
Speaker 1: and I hope you've enjoyed this. And uh wow, nice,
Speaker 1: I understand. And nobody called up. Not a single person
Speaker 1: called up and said that, so we didn't have to
Speaker 1: deal with that at all. Have a wonderful rest of
Speaker 1: your Saturday. If you're interested in cameo, I am on
Speaker 1: cameo dot com. Did another cameo this week. Had a
Speaker 1: great time with that. And if you'd like to have
Speaker 1: a personalized message for you, a Mallard monologue dedicated to you,
Speaker 1: then please contact me on cameo. It's not free, but
Speaker 1: it's not that much. There's people charging a lot more
Speaker 1: than me. Most people are charging more than me, but
Speaker 1: check it out and we'd love to do it for you.
Speaker 1: And don't forget the mail bag on Sundays Sunday Sunday
Speaker 1: and we'll catch you next time. Aloha,