Fall Ball

takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the air everywhere, eight days a week, although there is some talk it will not be eight days a week after after this week, but who knows. We are in to Sunday, Sunday Sunday. That will be very interesting. All right now, this is a test, and I'm gonna explain why this Sunday podcast is a test in a moment. But we are here. You know you've you've found the show. We thank you

for that. You've supported the show. You've gone to camp dot com, you've asked for request you've gotten that we've completed all of them as requested, and you follow the show on social media. For that, we thank you. We are joined yet again for better or worse by David Gascon, who's right over there here, I'm here. It's it's the day before the rest of the Denver Broncos roster falls onto I. R. Well, that's your mistake for picking the Broncos as your team. Bad job by you, man, Jamon.

You should be a l A Rams fan opening up a brand new billion dollars stadium with nobody in the crowd. That's why you build a billion dollars day. They could have been playing in an empty field somewhere, but they'll play the Cowboys tonight, tonight tonight. And I heard a dirty rumor and it was from an old colleague of ours who said to me in confidence that a certain company that he used to work for, that white we might be affiliated with, has a nice luxury box suite.

Is that true? Well, oh, you know what that person might or might not have text me and I said I do not know. Yeah, I said, I do do not know. And uh so that is true. There's a nice, big luxury suite. But but but that's not gonna be used though, right, that's not gonna be No. But you know you were you were wrongfully rejected last season by them for credentials, and I'm hoping that you can get on the good graces this year for them and maybe you know, kind

of squeeze us through the Uh yeah, you know. It's it's crazy because this this weekend, I was supposed to go to watch the Dodgers and the Astros, right right, and uh, so had plans on Saturday. I thought the Dodgers were playing on Friday night against the Astros. They were not usually always play on Friday, but this is a wonky and so they had the day off as a traveled eggs. They were traveling by stagecoach back from from Arizona, UM and all that. So, uh I would

have gone on Friday. I had no planned Saturday. I had plans with the wife, and then Sunday I was gonna go. But the problem, the problem here, it turned out that the NFL is starting obviously today, So it's like I can't do that. I gotta I gotta watch football. That's where the bread is buttered here. Yeah, it's a

brand new year, you got. We had Mahomes and your Boy to Shaw wantson on Primetime Thursday night, and uh man, I it just it sucks for watching college football yesterday, because you know, you got to two fifths of the conferences in the Power five not playing in the Big ten, and they packed twelve. But at least that the NFL at his full speed ahead with thirty two teams going at it warp speed, warp speed, and the Big ten

st here. And we'll talk about this, I know, and we talked about a lot, the health check on the NFL. What will the ratings be today, the first Sunday of the NFL season. Will the ratings go up? Will they stay the same? Will a flatline? Will they go down? Um? And whatever the result of that is will be spin spin spin spince. If the ratings go up, they'll be the I told you so. See it doesn't matter. Nobody cares about the activism. See the ratings are up. Football's bulletproof.

If the ratings stay the same, they'll say, well, see, none of this really hurt the NFL. They've got the same audience they had before. And if the ratings go down, all then it's on. All right, then it's on if the ratings go down. So, with you being a huge football fan and this being part of our occupation, let's just say, for example, you're a director. If you're a director, how do you navigate your your your videographers and your

camera crew. Do you have them looking at any kind of activism or do you have them shoot away from any of that stuff immediately? Well listen, Uh, if I was doing it, I would ignore all of it. But the people that work in television your profession guest on, Uh, my sense of TV people is they will focus on they will look for that. They'll tell their the director will tell the camera people all right, if you see anyone makes some kind of gesture or you know, we

need that, we need that shot. You know, you've got to get that shot. Like I just imagine watching it. It's like watching the NBA on TV. Like ESPN is worse than t N T with the activism coverage, but t NT does it too, But ESPN is just NonStop with it. When you watch the NBA and you try to avoid that, they just you know, when there's a lull in the broadcast, what do they do, they talk about the activism stuff. So we'll see what it'll be. Baseball,

I thought it's done a pretty good job. I watched a lot of the baseball games, different teams around the country, and I flip around, and I haven't heard too much of it in baseball so and certainly on radio that like the local radio broadcast. They're just talking about the game. They're not worried about any of that stuff. So that's that's that's cool. But yeah, network TV, man, it's been over the top. Well because you went on a trip a week or two ago. But do you listen to

any radio broadcast outside the Dodgers. I do. It's harder now. I I used to have an app that had all the games and I could just flip around. It's more difficult now because you you know, there's pay walls and things like that. But uh, but I still found a way. Yea. You know there are where there's a will, there's a way. Uh, if you want to hear something, So I have. I've heard some, but I've not heard as many as as I had in years past. But I still I still listen.

And actually a lot of it is on television also, So well, good U, good news for you, and good news for me. Um had a nice, lovely letter that was sent to me the other day. It says, uh, the fifth that with Ben Maller one star, great content, horrible sound. I know. Yeah, yes, now we should have addressed this earlier, but we had big name guests on and other things that we were getting to. But yeah, I want to thank you, Guess because you know, one

of my goals is when I do the show. I was just like, all right, I want to have a smooth show when I do a radio show. Don't want the boss calling, right, don't want the boss calling. Don't want that wake up call when I'm trying to sleep. Hey Ben, when you get up, give me a call. We've got to talk about something. Don't want that, right. And then I love when you come in here and you do the podcast and you're slaving away for several hours.

You do the podcast, and then you know, the podcast airs and you go and check your your inbox and it's hey, I couldn't hear I couldn't hear you. You sounded like, yeah, you had like some kind of metal clanking or what I mean. It's NonStop, NonStop, And it was like, oh my god, you know they were killing you, guess gun. They were just out there get you. But it was it was brutal, Yeah, it was. It was amazing.

I you know, I don't correct me if I'm wrong on this, But if you're If you have a problem with your car or your cell phone, for example, and there's something not right with it, you take it to a mechanic or a technician. You usually say, hey, there's something wrong with this. Can you can you do me a favorite? Can you look at this? And can you can you diagnose the problem and fix it for me? You don't go into the mechanics shop or into the

technician's workplace and just say I can't hear anything. What the fund is this? There's something wrong with this? Your job? You know, like if you want something, I think it's more civil just to acknowledge, Hey, you have a potential problem. You might want to look at this, Like like j Scoot for example, great guy set me a d M. It was like, hey, just a heads up, there's something wrong with with Ben's audio. You might want to look

at it. And I said, not a problem, and so like are like once we load up audio, it goes into the ether. But then there's you've got the back channels which handle all of this. So like emp preason before you know, there's a lot of filters. Also, there's uh, yeah, we we actually sound very high pitched without the filters. Yeah, a little bit difference. So people were taking things out of the studio and I was, you know, kind of

running with one leg at a time. Hold. I was like, wait, wait, let me get my my violin out here so I can play some some music. No, but I'm saying that impacted your sound so well. Well, at just one point, I use the same I'm in the remote studio here, so I have the same equipment that I used for the radio show that I used to the podcast. It's no different. I come into the same studio, I turned the same equipment on. I have to you know, the same routine, and that's it. So I it's nothing. I

don't touch any of these. I got a bunch of knobs and a bunch of buttons and all this crap. I don't even know what half this this ship, but I don't touch it. Don't. I never touch it because I don't. I want the same sound. It's set up the right way, and so I just leave it. So this was on the processing in yes, because all your audio gets processed here and then it gets filtered into some some software for recording purposes. So when they pull that stuff out, but I can't do shit about it.

In fact, when we were recording last week, in fact, I don't know if you remember this, but my microphone died because a processor burned out. Well that's actually because the mic realized that you were from west of the four oh five, and the MIC's like this, this guy, I don't know if you can really tell what the four oh five is anymore. It's covered in nash. But stop listen. How about those of us that live closer to the actual belly of the beast with the fire?

I mean, don't start with that. If you took a red marker and you decided to tag California with fires, the entire state would be just covered in red marker. Yeah, it's it's so bad. How bad is it? It's small so bad that I believe Smokey the Bear is quitting. He's just overwhelmed. Smokey the Bear is overwhelmed and he's ready to just quit. He's I can't handle it anymore.

When you posted that picture the other day about your car being covered in ash, it was I could imagine like if that's no joke, because then you go outside and you smell it and you can't get away from it. Well, no, I said the other day on the radio, like I get up, I have my routine. I get up and I go. You know, I've called you sometimes. I'm on this long walk around, you know, like urban hiking or whatever. And uh, I go out every day when I wake up.

And the other day I couldn't. I couldn't. It was I could see the thick pieces of ash raining down. I it was wild, and uh, the whole the ground looked like there was confetti, black and gray and white confetti all over the place. The car was completely covered. So you know what I'm gonna do when this ends, I'm going to home depot or low. Maybe I'll go to the Lows in Beaver Creek, Ohio, and I'll get

one of those you know those electric air blowers. You know, I've always wanted to have one of those anyway, And I'm gonna buy one, and I'm just gonna I'm gonna put all the ash. I'm gonna blow it all away off off the that's my I'm excited about that. Actually, of course, the fires might end by maybe December if I'm lucky, because it never rains in California, so we

don't have that to look forward. So here's the thing. Yeah, the fires will be gone, but then we'll have no water, so we'll be in a drought because we used all of our water up in the state. Perfect. Hey, yeah, that's well, it doesn't matter because the state's not never gonna be open, as the babylon Be said, until they find a cure for death. Yes. I did see though, that restaurants in New York are opening up again at the end of the month. Does that mean California is

gonna open up? I don't know. Yes, de Blasso got overruled by Governor cump Cuomo regards the restaurants, because you want to keep those closed until at least the summer of that. Really wow. And then there are articles that stated that that city mandated gems that were used for municipal workers were open, but not public gems. Interesting. Interesting. So I know you've got the governor here that has

his wand reopen. You got Speaker of the House who has her slant open privately for her Yes, but no know, she got good. She was she was set up, you know, just like the when the police do the same thing. Yeah, sting operations. They imagine that does that defense work? Judge, I'm sorry. Remember Marian Barry, he probably not the mayor of Washington, d C. He got caught the same way a sting operations, smoking crack cocaine. And uh yeah, I was a set up here, you know, come on, called

it entrapman, right, Oh, that is wild Nancy Pelosi. I give her, she's so over the top man. And they don't even ask her. And she does the interviews, they don't even bring it up. It's like she just just misses them. I appreciate your question, but that's not something that's important to me right now. That's great idiots for voting for these people anyway, speak for yourself. Hey, yeah, both sides of that matter, all right. Anyway, we have the mail bag. Yes, are we ready for the mail bag?

These are actual listener questions you guys have been great on on the Facebook page Ben Maller Show. Also you can email us at Real Fifth Hour at gmail dot com. And so let's go quickly, guests, because we have a ton of questions here. We have more and more every week the podcast getting popular, which I guess is good for us. I mentioned though before I get into the

mail bag. So This is a test, right. We do it eight days a week now, but we were thinking because of the NFL, the downloads are not going to be great on Sunday. So if they're not great, why would we do it, you know, because if people are busy watching football and they're not gonna be listening to the podcast, asked, So we're gonna We're gonna test this

out and see what the numbers are. And if the numbers do go down dramatically for the Sunday podcast, then we will just do Friday and Saturday, and you know, we'll we'll do Benny versus the Penny on the on the YouTube, which we've got, which we're excited about and uh, and we'll keep that and then we'll after football we'll bring back the Sunday podcast. So it's really depending on if the downloads either stay the same or go up.

If they go down, then we'll pull the plug. Yes, and don't forget though, because people that email you do so on the Facebook page. We're actually gonna have a link for the YouTube show on the Facebook page as well. Yeah, and I'll tweet it out. We'll have it on I don't know how to put it on Instagram. Can we

put it on Instagram? I'll I'll try to put it on all the different platforms so you can you can check that if you miss the show on Friday in future, we said, and we've we've settled in at five thirty Eastern to thirty Pacific, Is that right, guest? But but you know and watch it live where you can watch the rebroadcast, which is the cool thing about the internet.

So whenever it'll be up after the show, quickly after the show ends, right, yes, we week choose the only one that I we can't do at that time because I got called into the studios here get go Fox Sports Radio. But outside that, yes, two thirty is uh wait, so we're not doing it in a week? Two we're not doing it. We are just not not too thirty. Well, what time are we doing on it? We'll do it, uh whenever I get home, so like an hour after that? Oh, man,

I mean that's my schedule. Are you gonna you're gonna screw up my schedule? Cowboy? My boss is called the what do you want? I mean, what about me? Man? I mean, come on, can't you do multitask and do two things at the same time? You got, you got belly to keep your company for a good hour. The bells, hell's bells, I got it ready. Can you even walk her outside right now with the state on fire? No? No, I don't usually walk her. She she we got a dog edoor, so she goes out the dogs sometimes, but

that takes care of her basiness. Sorry, let's get to the mail bag. Carlos in Bang Bang, Houston, Texas right soon? He says, did you shed a tear when Blair was singing you that song? Don't lie, Carlos says, And what is the origin story of the great Genie in Medford? Well, Carlos good questions. First of all, I was taken aback by Blair. Blair did decide to do some acapella singing for me. It's his final It was his final week calling the show. I believe he will pop up from

time to time. I think Blair will come back to the show at some point. I don't think he's gone forever. He'll check in and say, hey, I'm still here in Pete and Pittsburgh. Quit the show years ago, but he still calls like once every six months when he goes out on a bender, and he'll call up and give us, give us an update and things. So but yeah, it was,

it was and the Genie and Medford. Uh the story has been well documented here, but she's the greatest caller in the history of sports talk radio the Overnight and she started calling the show because she got in trouble. She got arrested for calling nine one one and she just wanted someone to talk to. She was lonely, and she called the nine one one operator in Medford, Oregon, and they were annoyed, so they called, you know, they were their places, and they called the cops out and

arrested her for whatever. And uh so they told her, listen, if you're alone, call call the radio. They're people there at the radio station. They'll take your call. So she somehow found our show on the radio there in Medford, Oregon, and she started calling and she called for probably around ten years, maybe the less than that. But yeah, that's the legend of Genie and Medford. I thought she was I didn't think she was real. I thought she was

she was fake, But she's real. Brian and Boston writes and says, if it had worked out at w E I and Boston, would you have moved here you and Callahan would have been awesome. Well, uh, Brian, thank you. I did have an offer from w E I, but it didn't work out. The financials didn't work out. And um also the wife, she has a good job in in California, so we were looking at that and uh, it didn't work out. But I love Boston and I would love to work in that market at some point here.

So you never know. Down the line, things change, and if California keeps going the way it's going, I think my wife will be more willing to relocate. So so I guess, Brian, cheer for the continued downgrade of California and then I can convince her to go to a place like Boston and and do that. But but yeah, that they were great to me, the I and I'd still be working there doing some shows remotely if it hadn't been, you know, for the Sports Hub picking up

the Overnight show. I think if you're migrating anywhere, I think you're going to Florida next. Why Florida. I just see you going there. No state income tax. Yeah, I would say Texas or Florida, Like man, Massachusetts. I love Boston too, but damn you go well no, no, no, no, no. My guys that e I were telling me you live in Vermont or New Hampshire. That's the move. Yeah, that's the move. That's a that's a workaround for the taxes.

All right, yeah, yeah you know no. Uh. Several of the guys that e I were telling me when I was back there, they were like, hey, yeah, I know we live over here. I drive in. It's not that bad a community. If you're off hours, it's not that bad. And the taxes are amazing compared to to Massachusetts. So yeah, I would not live in Massachusetts. I would live some

out in the sticks and then drive in. That would be That would be my John the jailer rights and from Allentown, Pennsylvania's has been and guestcon would you rather be pete, pooped or vomited on? Alright? Guess your thought. I know you've had all three in your life, but which one was your favorite? Yeah, I've I've vomited on myself. I think you'd have to go with the less toxic.

I think you have to go with urine. Right, I would agree with you, and I think for most most people at some point you've had issue was when you were potty training as a kid, you probably urinated on yourself anyway. Well, he probably pooped on yourself anyway. Else But I would say, uh, the lesser of the three evils would be I hope Doc Mike doesn't hear this. The urine, so that would be the problem. Billy from Las Vegas slash Chicago, Louisville, Charlotte who was born in

Virginia Beach. He says, I'm the guy who calls in from time to time who's grinding hard to get into the sports media industry. I know who you are, Billy. I love your passion. Man. You've been calling me up. Your hustling. You're you're willing to relocate, move all over, pack your stuff up, be a vagabond radio hobo to try to make it in the business. And I respect the hard work man. That's a good job by you, all right. So he says, what's the hardest part of

preparing for a radio show? Have you ever not prepared for a show and one on live? If so, how did the show turn out? Uh? Well, Billy, to me, the hardest part is the preparation for the show, though the show itself is actually pretty easy. Um comparison, I I'm obsessive. I learned from We've had hacks On a couple of times. I learned from hacks On how to prepare her radio show. And I do spend a lot of time, and the hardest part for me is to try to find I try to do each hour different.

A lot of guys do one hour and they're lazy and these to repeat the one hour and they get away with it and people like it. What I try to do each hour different, try to mold it differently, and so I try to find four things that interested me that are worthy of a monologue, like I can riff for ten minutes or so on. And that, to me is the hardest part because it's I usually will

find two or three. It's that last one that I often have a problem with, like because I wanted to be good and I and I was like, I can't find something like uh so I know I'm good for two or three a day, but that last one seems to be a problem. And as far as showing up and doing the show without preparation, I have done it a few times over the years because of a family commitment or I was called in at the last minute, and uh yeah, it's surprisingly I thought they were. They

were okay. I just think they can be better, you know, I think they can be better. And so if somebody, as I've often said, one of the mantras here not to be a blowhard is that if somebody gives you their time to listen to the show, they could listen to a bunch of other stuff, especially now with all these podcasts and music and all that. If they're gonna give you their attention, if you're you listening, then I want to do a good show. I don't want to

do a half as show. I don't want to roll out of bed, And a lot of these guys will read whatever is on ESPN dot COM's front page or whatever, and they they'll roll with. I don't want to be that guy, but my life would be a lot easier if I was that guy. So uh Pierre in Springfield, Massachusetts. Right soon, he says, who is the biggest narcissist? Gag On or Brian Finley? He said, last time I checked, it's the Ben Maller Show or The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller. If they were a w w E tag team,

they'd be known as the hijackers, that's all. This is a great way Gagon or Finley, who is the bigger narcissist? Well, congratulations that David Gascon, you win. You beat out locally docally do Brian Finley? So can you win the Golden ticket? Congratulations? How is that even possible? Well, you're well, you're both well. Actually, Finley's from San Diego, so he's not west of the four oh five because the four or five ends before

San Diego. But he has a lot he does, I think, live west of the four or five when he's in l A. He's got a place that he stays at. But yeah, I mean you're the bigger You're the much bigger narcissist. You are, But you both hijacked the show, that's true. Do you think I hijack your show? Yeah? Really? Yeah? The cook the steak, what's up with that? You know? All the all the things you do to annoy me, that's a long list. You're getting rather annoyed pretty fast

over some stupid ship. I don't know what you're talking about, no idea what you're talking about? All right, Sir scratch Off writes in from Arkansas, says, why don't they let Eddie do the show when you're on vacation. There you go. Good question. Uh, well, there's a couple of things I can say, sir, scratch that. First of all, I appreciate you giving me the title as the executive program director of Fox Sports Radio. That's actually Scott Shapiro that has

that title. I do not have that title. Uh. And then I don't make those decisions when I'm not on the schedule. I have nothing to do with who's on the air. I have zero to do. I wish I did. That would be nice, but I don't. And I think also Eddie would probably have to be proactive on that, right. I guess gon that you have to say, hey, I'd like to do this, and then they have to approve it and all that. Yeah, that's a good question. That's not one that I'd be able to answer. Do you

do you advocate for anyone to fill in for you? Uh? If I'm asked, Yeah, if I and they say, hey, I got a you know, a couple of options here, I'll say, oh, yeah, I'd like rather have this person. But they don't ask They almost never asked no. No, I can't remember the last time they asked, Hey, would you rather work with this person? No? No, let's just put the schedule out and they know I'll usually do it no matter why. I'm not gonna complain. Uh. Jesse from Pomona rights in in so Cal. He says, my

question this week is easy. Would you rather have the Lakers never win another championship again? Or the Major League Baseball Commissioner's strip the Astros of their tainted championship and give it up to the Dodgers' question? This is a Sophie's choice situation. All right, So here's the way I'm gonna answer this now. In the moment, you have the micro in the macro. So, first of all, in the micro, I would obviously say I'd rather have the Astros championship pulled,

the tainted championship, the dirty championship. But if you look at the macro, the rest of my life, which I hope is a fair amount of time, all of these people that are like Gascon over there, Laker fan boys, the historians to never see them enjoy another championship, and I'm guessing the clips of winning at least one or two the rest of my life. So, uh, that would be awesome that I would take that. No more Laker championship now, because the way I look at the Dodgers

are gonna win the World Series. Also, they're gonna win one, and I can continue to bash the Astros, which is great material for the radio show. So that's a win win. So Jesse, you probably thought I was gonna take the Astros, but no, if you can guarantee me right now the Lakers never win another championship, I mean, sign me up for that. Where do I sign the paperwork? Let's cross the tea's dot the i's right now, come on. Plus, you don't want to take a title from from somebody else.

You don't want how to strip exactly. That's a good point. Yeah, you'd rather just void I. I don't need the Dodgers should be given the title, but they should be. It should be voided. Yeah, you just have it, bla. It would be like if Vince Young won the Heisman Trophy after you know, Reggie Bush had it stripped from him. Like I wouldn't want that, would you know? You know,

retroactively bullshit is what it is. Yeah, all right, Jason in Rocky Mountain, Virginia Rights and he says, Big Ben, can you now admit that you, Darvish is an excellent picture. Fuck unbelievable, Jason listen. I'm happy you Darvers has pitching well for the Chicago Cubs. He has been amazing. Good for him, uh, And I do feel somewhat um. I don't know the guilt is the right word. I don't

think guilt's the right word. But I realized that when I was at Game seven and you dar Wish uh pooped pooped the bed, that there were reasons he pooped the bed. I do believe the Astros were stealing signs home and wrote home and wrote, I believe that to be true. Um in Baseball did a shoddy investigation and only went halfway with the information that they had. They had more, they chose not to go with it. I imagine that will come out in the years to come.

But anyway, nonetheless, I digress. Uh, you Darvis has pitched very well, and he's gotta he's gotta be the favorite with a like twenty days to go for this gazy cy Young Award. So I can't excellent. And he's had a good year, but it's not even a full year. And if you had a full year, then it's a more legit year. But he's played well, Like Jake Arietta

won the cy young that one year. It was like was two thousand and six team when he had a good half season, took it away from Kershin Granky, who were both pitching for the Dodgers half of seasons three months. This is two months. But he's been pretty fucking good. He's been dominant. No, he's been great. Hey, listen, I've won some money with you, Darvish. I mean, come on, gonna complain. I'm not. I ripped the guy at that

blew him to Smith of Reens uh years ago. But we move on, all right, Chris and Michigan, He says, which league will be the first to have their TV deal revisited by their network partner? Interesting to see which leagues are being forced to take a haircut based on their latest ratings and advice. All right, So that's from Chris. Uh. You know, that's a that's a tough one because the TV business is seemingly in in lockstep. A lot of

the people work in television or lockstep with this. So but but you do have bills to pay, and you have agreements, and you know, it's kind of like when you buy a house and you pay too much money for it, and then the price tanks and then you're still paying the price. The houses underwater. These TV deals. If this continues with a global recession, these TV deals

become underwater. Now. I remember I used to have a friend of mine who was a big guy at ABC years ago, and they had Monday Night Football, and he would always say that the network looked at that they didn't make money on Monday Night Football. This is before ESPN.

The games went to ESPN and and there was a siml caisse, but it was just on on ABC and his They argument, they said, was it was a lost leader, but it helped their prime time ratings and it helped the whole network ratings, So that's why they were willing to take the hit because it helped everything else. The question becomes like, for basketball, if your TNT does this help and maybe it will? Does this continue to help the rest thing that you have and all these other

properties that you have on t N? T Uh. You know ESPN is gonna do it no matter what because they need programming. So it'll be interesting. Though. I guess I go NBA because they're so over the top, like the other sports leagues are a little bit. We'll see what the NFL, you know, this weekend, how it goes. But but like the NBA has they got they got symbols on the jerseys. Uh. They can't even say we're not being political. It says vote you know on the jersey,

which is a political act. Uh, and all this and and so I'd say the NBA is the most that's in the in the weeds on this, especially because of the international money that comes in from China. Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, well that that's another element that I am really brought up is we've seen how Hollywood we've has cows out to China, and if you know, China says, you know what, we'll let you, We'll let our brought

your broadcast back on. That's actually another interesting thing because if if the Darryl moriy deal hadn't happened, you could make the argument that this activism would not be taking place in the NBA because China would have said, we're not going to broadcast games with Black Lives Matter on the court and the jerseys and all that, because you know, that doesn't fit with our communist agenda here in China.

And uh, and so we're not gonna do it. And then the NBA would have they would have, you know, bowed down, right, they would have bowed down taking her knee for China. So that's another if if China says, are we'll put the games back on, but you gotta do X, Y and Z, Wow, what would the NBA do They had all that money that carried at the end of the stick. Yeah, that's a puzzling thing because obviously you can target Europe, you can go Europe, you can go South America, but a bulk of their money

comes from the from the Chinese. Yeah. And you know if magic the NBA took a stand against the China y oh yeah, yeah right uh Lee and Phoenix right scene says when you go to Costco, do people ask for pictures? Yes, all the timely all the time, although not as much since they got rid of the samples. Eric in Binghamton as good at at least allowed at least an old overnight caller, but he moved to the

dreaded day shift. Eric in Binghamton, New York rights and he says, being that he is west of the four oh five, does David believe in going to your beloved Costco gas. Are you a Costco guy? Yeah, And they have the cheapest gas that I can get here in in southern California. Like it's tough, especially like you know drive, if you drive anywhere near the four oh five, especially L A X, you're getting raped on gas. Yes, all those rental car places, although no one's rerunning cars now,

but they still have the price of gas obscene. Yeah, they're usually at least a dollar maybe even like a dollar fifty more than anywhere else like Inner City. But Costco is a ship and the sample samples are great no matter where you go. I've had the pizza, which is good, but I don't go anywhere else out because you don't You do like corn dogs and hot dogs too, Ben, Now I don't have corn dogs, they have hot dogs. I do. My My big order would be the hot dog.

I get the slice of the cheese pizza, and then I'd get the berry Sunday and that was That's the perfect meal. But the the veteran move at Costco. You order the hot dog and the pizza. You then go back in line or do the kiosk and order the Barry Sunny because you don't want it to melt. You don't want it to melt while you're eating the pizza and the hot dog. And some people just eat it all together. But I like to have it as my dessert at the very end. And I'm jealous because like Costco.

I know, we've had listeners in Vancouver that have sent me photos of the food court at Costco and they have chicken fingers. There's a place, I think it's in Toronto. The Costco in Toronto has poutine. Oh man, ye yeah right, yes, I can imagine the Costco in Vancouver or Toronto looking like the Whole Foods. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I want to go to Vancouver in Toronto, not to see those cities, which are beautiful, just to experience Costco

poutine and Costco chicken fingers. Man, that's a game change. I might not eat anywhere else. That might be the only place I eat. That would be my my restaurant orning, noon and night at least, you know, would be on a on a good quality budget, that's true. Yeah, yeah, cost effective. I tell my my dad's on a budget. You know, he's retired and he's got he's got no

money or whatever. Because it would have happened. But I always telling me, I said, go to Costco buy a large pizza because he didn't eat that much, you know, the older guy now, and uh, that thing will last like four days. You know, there's there's so many pieces of pizza there. You just get that thing for four days, four meals out of it, and save yourself a bunch of money. Matt from Dallas, that was fort Worth. Since I only recently learned that there's a black nashalanthem, I

am wondering if there's a Mallard national anthem. All right, Matt, this is a great question. So um the answer is yes, although not official. So a couple of years back, several p One's brigadier generals Rod the Ambassador of Bakersfield and uh, I think it was Tammy and Montana. They teamed up and made a really cool song, which unfortunately it was before Roberto was on the show. So like Danny, g is part of it. And Roberto doesn't know about anything

that happened before. Roberto I love him, but he doesn't know, so he doesn't play any of those sound bites. Everything he plays is from when he joined the show, and that was before Roberto was part of it. So if somebody wrote a song now and included Roberto, then I have a feeling it would get a lot of airplay. But but that was one. We've got a couple of songs that were like the Mallard and Nashal Anthem that was a Mallard related show song. But that's a little gimmick.

It's kind of like Adam Sandler doing a Honikah song because he knows that I'll get played, and or writing a Christmas song. In general, every holiday radio stations play nothing but holiday music, and so like, if you do a song about people on the radio, they're gonna play it, and they're probably gonna play it a lot. So just just point that little little life pack if you're a

struggling musician. Kentucky Tay and Jay right in from Scottsville, Kentucky, and they say, first, first off, thanks for referring to my wife and I as a power couple. Jay says, I got so excited we about crashed our car during the drive. How about that gas gun? When did you refer to them as a power couple? Thanks for listening? It was yeah when they were because the email they

send in every week. They're they're almost religiously part of this and uh, here's anyway, So can they can they bring or can they ship off some some bourbon from their from their parts of town? Are you begging for a freebee guest gun? Is that what you're doing? Yes? Yes, I know it's beneath you. But how about a little taste, a little something here on the west side? How about some bathtub jim bathtub? What do you call it? Moonshine? Yeah? Have you ever had wonshine? Well? Yeah, because our guy

in Pennsylvania made something. Yeah, yeah, I have a little left if you want. You want it? Did you vomit? No? I as you haven't had it yet because I was gonna have it at the holiday party. We didn't get to it. It's it's sitting right over here. I have it's right in my studio. So I hope, I hope our trucker friend appreciates that I still have it. I haven't. I had no idea. I'll save it for you for you all right? Yeah, for years ago, when we in the early days of Foxborstradi, I remember a guy from

like Chattanooga, Tennessee, who had this thick Tennessee accident. You know, sounded like the cliche of somebody from Tennessee. And he used to tell me, Oh, bat, I'm gonna make you the moonshine. You know, he never did, but but this guy in Pennsylvania did. So that's I think it was Trucker, Joe Truck or Joe all right us? But anyway, Uh, the Tay and j question. You're out camping and you only have one rifle and thirty bullets or a fishing pole with land full of natural bait. What are you

gonna choose to use to supply food? Wall strained? I say this, you only have thirty bullets, but that would seemingly be a more effective way of getting food. Right, if you find something, you can shoot, But if you miss and you run out of bullets, I'd go fishing. If you have a full natural landscape of bait, I would go fishing. I don't really like seafood. Can you even fish? Yeah? How hard is it? You throw the damn thing in the water and sit there? How hard? Difficult?

Is that? You're not really athletic? How the how the fund do you have to be athletic as a fisherman? You're gonna show some balance. You're gonna have a good cast away. Stop. Man. I go to the beach every once in a while. I see these people. They're drinking beer, sitting down with their you know, they're big, oversized hats on, and they got their fishing rod on the side of the dock and they're not even paying any attention to it. Are you talking about? You nuts? You lost your freaking mind?

All right, Scott the water Boy writes in from Starks, Mississippi, I believe, he says, or Maine. I don't know, Uh, Mr Ben Wagner, do you know of any NBA teams in search of a high quality water distribution engineer? Uh? Yeah, I don't know. Guess you know any of the teams that want a water boy? No? No, all right, sorry, I can't help you. I'm Att from Tuscaloosa. Is Kawhi Leonard the greatest basketball player in the past ten years? Matt, that's a great question. Check back in about a month.

Check back in about a month. If Kawhi Leonard does what he's about to do, the answer is apps a bleep and lutelee. I mean, he's right there, outside of an outside of a miss free throw against the Miami Heat. He's there. He to win. If you can win the first championship for Toronto and the Clippers back to back after winning in San Antonio, He's better than Jordan's, He's

better than Lebron, He's better than all of them. That Trump's, any of those other accomplishments, any of those other company that Kawhi Leonard becomes the face of the NBA and nobody can disagree with that. If you disagree with that, you're dope. You're dope, You're a moron, you're a boob. It's just unfortunately he's not charismatic. Like if he was charismatic, this thing would I think this thing would be full tilt Kawa I love affair. Yeah, And he's not good

for the gossip part of basketball. He doesn't move the needle with anything other than his play. Uh. John from Omaha, Nebraska writes in he says, name a word that begins with F and ends with U c K. Can you do that, guest? Go No, fund Ruckers, Well that doesn't really know. A row By food isn't nice. Uh, they're still open. I thought they went out of business. They did, but so how are they still open. There's one I know it was running Burbank I used to go to. Yeah, no,

there's one in Torrents. That drove by it. It's closed, but I drove by it. I was like, I used to love Food Rutgers because I go in there as a kid and they'd have the whole like side of cow, like in the butcher shop and it's like the coolest, Like wait a minute, well that's the burger before it gets to your plate. What the fund is that? I was like, you gotta be kidding me out? And they weren't they synonymous with the fat fries? Like, yeah, they

had good I really liked Food Rutgers. I don't know what happened, but they I guess they screwed up financially, couldn't make it, but I loved it. Yeah what sucks? Yeah? Uh, you know recently there was up until about a year ago, there was a sizzler right near me, like the last sizzler. Is there any sizzlers around? You know? There's Yeah, this is like the last one and it's finally closed up,

finally closed up shop and all that. All right. Rucker Joe, we just mentioned him, Chucker Joe in Pennsylvania writes in he says, who's on your list for top five comedians? All right, we'll chucking Joe off the top of my head. The greatest of all time for me, the late great George Carlin. George Carlin is good, awesome. Um may he rest in PI so though he didn't believe in that.

So he's just you know, he's he's an atheist. But uh Carlin, Uh, Richard Pryor, uh Seinfeld doing stand up comedies, great, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Sa, Louis c K. I know you can't say that because oh he's a taboo. He did the sex thing. Louis Black. I think he's pretty good too. I mean, there's a bunch of those. Are my top five. I gave you like ten of them under the radar. I don't know if you've watched them at all. But Tom Wilson is really good. And if

you don't know, Tom Wilson is out there. Tom Wilson played Biff in Back to the Future. He's really fucking good. Yeah, you know who is? Also? He died years ago. In fact, I think he took his own life. But he was a great comedian. Richard Jenny Jenny, and he's probably been dead for over ten years. But he I thought he was so good and I could never figure out why he didn't become bigger. I always laughed my ass off when he Some of his stuff still on YouTube. But Richard Jenny j e n I if you have no

idea who that guy is. But I thought he was so good and he never really got that big break and took it to become the you know, the next you know, big star. But Steve Martin was like that too before he popped. Yeah, Steve Martin's funny. Brodie Stevens took his life. Oh yeah, Brody was great. He was a Malley militia guy, Brodie, and he was He sent me messages on Twitter. He's listen to the show all the time. And he was a guy that all the comedians loved because he was always at the l A

comedy clubs. They loved him. Everyone loved the guy. The great Brandy just unfortunately was depressed. And it sucks. All right, Let's see a few more here. Rick Hardo from Fred is No. He says, how many malanmobiles have you had and which one is or was your favorite? I've had several. Ricardo started out with the Valari, which was my grandfather's car. What color was it? Brown? Brown? Had a bench seat in the back. Did you like back there? Uh no, No, I I had a when I was in high school.

I got my my mom had this idea. She was very paranoid about be driving, so she said, I always gotta drive a truck or a van because that way, if you getting a wreck, you have a better chance to survive. So so I had this. I got this like old Dodge I think it was a Dodge van. It had no seats in the back, no seats in the back and uh and it just had, you know, the two seats in the front, and all the guys in the football team like I gotta borrow your carpet,

I gotta bart you know, the whole thing. It was like the most popular for some reason. I don't know why it was so popular guest con, but they loved the idea. And they just had like carpeting in the back. That was it. That's to get have like wood paneling on the sides. And uh, I had that. I had an F one fifty I drove for a long time. Yeah, Yeah, that was a gas guzzler had a ford edge I like, but that's also a bit of a gas guzzler. I

like the car. I had an electric hybrid thing that I liked until it turned out to be a Lemon. I can't afford a Tesla. I'd like to get one, I can't afford one, so nice man, Yeah, I want to wait until I feel like, in the next couple of years the mileage I need the mileage to get up. Right now, you can go like to seventy I think on those electric cars on a charge, I needed to get up to like four hundred and then I'm good. Does the state of California also give you tax credits

for driving those electric cars? Uh? Yeah. My wife a lot of people she works with have Tesla's and they I guess they it goes like the cars like forty five thousand if you buy it new, they'll chop ten thousand off or something like even thirty five thousand, something along those lines. So yeah, you get like a bunch

of reba. That's one of the reasons some of the stock people are like, well once once those rebates and Tesla is gonna be in trouble, because that's why a lot of people buy the cars because they get thousands of dollars back in in the benefits. So all right, uh, let's see who else do we have here? Any me? Any money? Mo? Kyle from Sane and Tonio the Alamo says which sports league will be the first to re shut down due to the OsO scary pandemic? I don't.

I'll Pack twelve if they ever started, I'll go to Pack twelve. And they seemed like the biggest scarity cats out there, so I'll go to the Pack twelve. Right? Why not? I also say college football? But yeah. Chris in Americaked, Iowa. Uh he says a farmer needs to get a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain across the river, but can only take one thing at a time in the boat. How does he do it

so nothing gets eaten? All right? Well, I think the obvious answer would just take the bag of grain across, right, No, because then if you take one of the other animals over and you go back, they'll eat the grain. Does a fox eat grain? It might open the bag up, But you know what, chicken will? Yes? All right, so then you take the chicken. Yeah, but then you have to worry about the chicken, either egg getting away or the fox eating the chicken. So what's the fucking answer

that I don't know? He didn't give the answer. That's good. Stay tuned for next week, Chris, that's a follow up, and then you'll know the rest of the story, the rest of the stories, Paul Harvey would saying. Jean and lis Bon Maine writes, and he says, whatever happened to JT? The break and Tom Ludi? Well, Jean, they are part of the Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association. I think they do a podcast together. We had Luney on, which no one listened to when he was on our podcast, but

we had luneyen and Luny is doing stuff. I think JT is doing a local Raiders radio show in Las Vegas. He's on the Raider's payroll there, I believe, and he's I think he's doing a show. It's serious, I think at night. So he's got some stuff going on. But uh yeah, they're still still working, just not at Fox anymore. So they're doing their thing hustling, hustling and the radio business. Marking Ottawa writes in says, if you could go back in time and become the number one athlete in any sport?

Which sport would you pick? I think we've had this before. I think we've had this before. And you said, well, like baseball player, you know, Yankee Star back in the day would be big or quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, one of those things we get all the attention and all the glory and all that. But I guess NBA star would be the biggest thing because he's NBA. Guys, it's all about damn so like ahead of everyone. Yeah, I'm just thinking money wise, and money wise, you go baseball,

but if you go notoriety, you go football. Right, Uh yeah, I mean a bit a bit. Uh that's for sure. All right, we we only have time for a few more. Any meny miny mo? What shall we do here? Let's say boil Mark and Soku named one team in each of the four major sports that should vanish. All right, Baseball Miami Marlins, no one goes to the games? Uh done? Uh? NFL that's harder. But I get rid of the Houston Texans. Who cares about them? Jacksonville nah? Um? NHL, Ottawa suck NBA.

We got seven NHL teams. I don't know. Put a team somewhere else then U N B A. I don't know, Memphis, how about that? Yeah, that's good? Or Charlotte. Yeah, I like the Hornets logo though. All right, well let's that's it, Guesco. We must move on here, we must move on, and we put the baby to bed. By the way, I did do a a cameo for the Tomahawks steak that I was requested. You didn't actually complete the objective, but

that's fine. Well, no, I held up the steak to prove, should I fucking frozen Tomahawks steak when the request was to actually barb the request was for the steak, and I held the steak up to the microphone, and I said that steak is fine. And as I pointed out, by not actually cooking the steak, I am elongating the life of the Tomahawks steak. So it's a win win situation, is not. This is not nineteen o eight, This is not the Chicago Cubs. You don't want the story to continue, alright, alright,

knock it off, knock it off. All right, listen, have a great day to day, and uh, we'll see how the ratings go there. The ratings are good. The numbers are good, we'll keep the podcast going eight days a week. If not, we'll just do it seven days a week and then we'll figure out the rest. But anyway, have a great day, enjoy the NFL, and we'll catch you next time. Be sure to catch live edition so The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific