Forgotten Gems

of podcasting. Another edition of the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, because hey, listen, four hours a night, five days a week, clearly not enough. It is a labor of love, as we say. And I hope you heard the podcast on Friday with Jerome Love that it's great and do recommend it five stars. I'm a little biased. And then on Saturday, the Revenge of the Nerds. I hope you enjoyed. My my embarrassment, my shame, my indignity from my bifocal mistake was really my my mistake. It was just some things

went against me on that. So you can hear the Saturday podcast and now the mail Bag Podcast. And for the first time this weekend he got his contract. We done the man to New York one hot, fat day. He's back, Man, David. I've noticed the guest on, David Gascott, you come on here for the mail You like the mail bag, you enjoyed the mail Bag. I noticed that. I like it. But I feel like we've been let down.

I feel like we I feel like we were ambushed last week with some great material from one of the pioneers, and and then all of a sudden he yeah, and then he and then he didn't pay it off. Yeah, Well we will get to that in the mailback. A little disappointed, Alf did send some We spent an hour talking about fucking Carnival f And I was so hungry. I was on a seventy two hour fast and and I went out and I ate a big meal and

I thought, boy, this is good. But this ain't good like the Springfield, you know, state Fair there, whatever it is, the county fair. Anyway, all right, let's get right to the mail back. Guess on, right to the mail back. We don't have a ton of time, so we must move the show along. Expedite the show. First mail comes from Alan Byway. All this email before we give you

the email. All of it comes either via email Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com, spell out five F I F T H Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com, um or on Facebook. Typically Tuesday, sometime in the morning, I will post a link on the show Facebook page, which is Ben Maller Show, and you can post there. It's it's like Mom and apple Pie, and you can post, or you can email if you want to keep your

question private. And the surprise factor that works as well. Alright, Alan from acron Rights, and he says, did you net enough on the sale of the most recent Mallard mansion to recover what you lost when you took Looney's realistic advice back in the day. And Alan, you cannot see me, but I am shaking my head passionately. No, I have not. I did buy the Mallard mansion, the original Mallard mansion, at the peak of the housing market before the bubble burst.

Now the housing market has gone back up, and so I'm getting closer to the break even point. But even all these years later, it was it been twelve years or something like that, thirteen years. I still am still in bad shape, still in bad you but that thanks to Loony. And if you want, I can give you a Loony's number and you can call him up and he can give you all the information you want. You can tackle Looney and he'll help you out all right.

Next up, j in Duluth says Ben. I know we got a picture of beer drinking Brian and a half pint, but I would love to see some of the other callers ascending pictures. Also, you hear you hear us Tammy in Montana and Regina in Minnesota, and some of the other interesting callers. You get an image in your head of what they should look like, but I but it

never is quite what you think it is. Love the show been listening all four hours every night since Well, thank you, Jay, And I don't really want to know what everyone looks like. To me, the magic of radio is that we don't know. You think you know, you don't know. You have an idea what flexus America's favorite drag queen call it looks like, but you really don't know. I've seen Cowboy and Wins out. There's a few of the listeners I've met over the years Robbie the Mariner fan.

I met Jay Scoop guys like that, but a lot of them I've never met, and and sometimes I've met them and then I'm like, WHOA, I can't believe that, Like, what's what is that all about? Some of the some of the meetings. But yeah, and we could, we could do that ja at some point. But I like the the veil, the incognito nature of of radio. We're all the same. You know, you can't see anyone what they

look like. You can't really goof on him for what they look like, although we managed to do that because some of the guys tell everyone what they look like like. Robbie the Mariner fan gets a lot of fat jokes because he, you know, people know what he looks like. So all right, Fred in Spring, Texas, Right, since says, do either of you still have friends from grammar school or high school? Uh? Yeah, I'll go first. I have.

I'm trying to thank you. I have one friend from elementary school, and I have one friend my friend from elementary school lives in Dallas. And I have a buddy of mine from high school. I played football with that, my buddy Hunter, who's a gambling buddy of mine, and and that's it. I don't know anyone else other than those fake Facebook friends Guesston. But I don't really count that because I don't really know those people. I just see them post pictures of their kids and their dogs,

and I don't really know them. Yeah I have, Yeah, I have like a good solid seven group or seven group, seven guys that I'm friends with from elementary and high school. Part of the reason though, because we played we played football in grade school, then high school, and then half of us either went to San Diego State or the other half went to um University of San Diego, so

like we've been friends. And then on top of that, don't forget, you know, most of these guys that you're friends with are also part of like fantasy football leagues, so so we've been in the same league for at least twenty years. Kind of pressing and say, but yeah, that's a there's a couple of them. Yeah, you remain in touch. You are more social social me and I like to block all that out. I didn't really enjoy the educational process. It was not a fan of who

did You're really social. It's great you get to hang out with your buddies and and all that. But I just wanted to get out of there. I couldn't wait to get a job and start working somewhere and get get the hell out of school, all right, next up? Yeah, for real, I'm serious, Like I just I hated the bullshit. I could not stand the bullshit of school. And I also didn't like getting up early. I hated having to get up early. Now and I went to saddle back

and I did the college thing. I didn't have to get up early, because you schedule your classes for later in the day, but I remember the radio classes were in the morning, and that pissed me off. And I did I did show up. I did show up, all right. Christian from Miami Beach rights and says, Ben, answer me here if you can. Did you and Captain Kirk ever make up? You're my guy, and I'm riding with you. But well, Captain Kirk at age ninety Bill Shatner going

to outer space. So to answer the question, Christian, there was a come to Jesus meeting, a let by gones be by gone situation, and it was orchestrated by a member of the Star Trek fan base, the Trek eas and what happened, Well, this is this is so wonderful. William Shatner, who loves horses. He's got a place over here, I think in Burbank. I believe he's gotta like a horse thing. Anyways, in so Okay. So Shatner has a charity to help horses that like injured horses or something

like that. Anyway, I forget what all the details are. So he has this charity auction and one of the items on the auction, hand to god, I'm not making this up, is you can donate money to this equine charity. And William Shatner was gonna unblock me on Twitter, and it was like hundreds of dollars and some some dope I don't know who this was not a fan of mine, but was upset that the Mallard militia guys were busting the balls of Shatner and he was getting upset and

he was becoming flustered by the back and forth. So somebody pulled out their checkbook and wrote a check the Shatner and he unblocked me. So I am unlocked by William Shatner. But there was a bounty put on that, and somebody paid a ton of dough to pave the way for that to happen. So, but there's a lot of good as we said, guess got a lot of good foot soldiers that lost the relationship with with Shatner. They were blocked in the heat of war, bog of war?

Are you blocked by Shatner? No? No, I've never been blocked by him. Is a great man. I would never do anything in disrespect to me either. That proves you're not a real member of the mallem milish. That's it right there, Who's it right as we suspected? All right? Next, next up Blake in Arkansas. Hello Blake, Blake's the Amazon return oligarc and he says, Uh, we talked about this. I actually would love to do this if we can come up with the money here, he says, wherever you

get a ton of square footage for cheap? He says, uh. He says he didn't even lay the floor at his place in Arkansas. He also points out you can order on this Amazon return thing. You can order bigger items, smaller items. Yeah, so he claims again this sounds too good to be true. Guest, gun So, I'm always a little concerned by this, but he claims you're doubling your money. You pay twenty five thou dollars for a truck and

you bring in fifty dollars. Like if this was the case, and I'm not saying Blake's lying, and Blake, I hope we did get the hats by the way, Blake, I guess, God, have you been into the office. Have you been gotten your hat? No? No, you got him? Yeah, talk to Coop. I don't know where he put them, but I got my hats and I wore my Arkansas razorback hat in honor of Blake the other night when I was back

in my home studio. Yeah. Yeah, it fits. The other ones don't need real league hats, don't put that one fits. So so if we had a way, if that was guaranteed what Blake saying, twenty five grand into fifty thousand, then why wouldn't we just go out and take a twenty five thou dollar a lone, invest them. We got fifty, and then we take twenty five. We take twenty five out the rest of the twenty five but by another load, and then just keep making money hand over fist. Oh god,

I want to do that. I could get out of radio. I could go I could live a normal life, be like Enevitch. Anyway. Next up, Matt in Man's Fee Old Texas writes, and he says, if they rated overnight gas bags and blow hards with war, what would your score be? He asked, Oh, that would be douche eve me to answer that, gascon What do you think my war would be? If you were you understood the war statistic? Are you

on fan graphs over there keeping track of the war statistics? Yeah, but I'm trying to think because you like the Yeah, but you like what you you like working the overnight, Yeah, so it would be it would be. It would be hard because there's only like a couple of hosts that worked those same hours as you. Right, Uh, well, yeah, I don't. I don't even know who's on when I'm on. I mean, they're a bunch of hacks. So I don't really worry about that. Stay in your lane. Tunnel vision

gas that's what I have, tunnel vision. I don't worry about the others. I don't. I would say my winds above replacement would be like tray turner level. I would say, it's good. Take that better in the regular season than the playoffs have noted noticed straight turner a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, thank you Matt in Mansfield, Texas, Carlos and Bang Bang Houston. He says, ben when did you start playing the song all about the Benjamin's at

the top of each hour? It gets me every time. Also, it sounds a little cliche, but can you do the good, the bad and the ugly of the NFL Sunday in our two or three? Not to suck up to you, but you are one of the few guys whose opinions I respect. Also, how did the Mallard militias start? And who started? All right, So, as far as the first part of that, Carlos, we typically on Sunday nights start

with the Sunday night game. Unless it's a dog food game, we'll start with the Sunday night game, and then we work our way through, block by block the good, the bad, and the ugly of the NFL weekend. But if you want, I can try tonight. I can try to do that an hour two. But it's a little different now because the baseball playoffs are going on. We've got the Dodgers in the Atlanta Braves. I'm sure that'll be at some point of monologue. I can't ignore it. But it is

an NFL Sunday. It might not be a full Malar monologue depending on how it goes. And as far as the Mallard militia you misspelled militia bat job by you, Carlos, But that started in the early two thousand's at Fox Sports Radio, and you can thank a caller who wasn't really a caller. He would call up occasionally play the game shows, but he was mostly just a guy that would send me text an email. This guy named Johatas

John in Michigan, and the guy was a legend. Love the guy, very eccentric, quirky guy, and it was his idea. It was his baby, Jehatah John. And he had to change his name because I think it was about twenty nine something along those lines, there was an ISIS terrorist that would chop people's heads off in the Middle East

and his name the media called him Johada John. So I remember when that happened Gascon because I was getting people who are going through my Twitter and I was I'd mentioned Johada John randomly because that was his name on the show What Use You know through somehow connecting like I'm it was ridiculous. But but anyway, John just quit the show. He quit sports. He said, if I remember correctly as I understand it, Jehada John, he said,

if the the teams he likes don't win. By the time he was forty, he was gonna stop following sports, Michigan sports fan, and he actually did. He just gave up sports. He was a big sports radio fan. In fact, fun fact, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this not, but Johada John in those days friends with another solid Mallard militia guy, Carlos, the guy known as fun House on Twitter. You know the guy that sets out the video and he's an old Mallard militia guy

in New York. And he was friends with Johannes John. They were some of my listeners back in those days. They came up with the Mallord militia. All right, Next up Andy the hobo Hollywood Adjason. He says, right near that Tommy's where I would spend many a night in the parking lot at three thirty four in the morning, eating the chili cheese fries, the triple chili cheeseburger and washing it down with a lemonade and watching the people that were all walking around like zombies in the parking

lot there after clubbing all night on the Sunset Strip. Anyway, he says, so is the studio deep in the north Woods when you're at the new Mallard Mansion and merely in the north Woods when at Fox Sports Radio's Sherman Oaks Studios or elsewhere inquiring minds wanted up. Yeah, you know, I just I'm known as the north Woods guy now, so I have to say some version of the north Woods. But when I'm in the home studio, I'm definitely deep

in the north Woods. When I'm in Sherman Oaks, I am what would how would you describe Sherman Oaks, guestcout It's a hodgepodge, surprisingly high number of homeless people in Sherman, Ok. You don't see them during the day, but at night you see them. I don't know where they go during the day, but when we're there at night, there's a lot of them. Feel bad for the folks don't have

a place to stay, but it's crazy. Uh So, Yeah, Sherman Oaks and any any you have an answer guest gut by the way, so say like if it's really different, I mean day to night it's wild because it looks nice, looks clean, and all of a sudden you just turn out the lights and then the bars and people are leaving and the Yeah, there's just homeless people. There's a couple of tents that are out. There's just and that is that that area of the San Fernando Valley is

the stolen cross stolen car capital of Los Angeles. I was told because the four oh five and the one oh one freeway interchange right there, and so that those blocks right around the Fox Sports radio studios. It's it's a gold mine if you're in the stealing cars, because you can steal a car and be on the one oh one or the four oh five within within a minute, less than a minute, you're on the freeway, you're gone.

And then from there you can you can spur off to one of the other freeways within five minutes, right, you can go down the ten. Yeah, which direction you go, so you can really just get away fast. Uh. Giving advice if you want to steal cars. Also, please, he says, please bring back the go King Eddie drop for hockey season. He says he's digging Benny versus the penny again this year, So thank you Andy. That is up to Roberto. He is the keeper of the drops, Roberto. This is I

think Dan sent this one. This is a question for you, guesscount. He says, if most of the people left are not vaccinated, and most of those people are Republican or anti vact is, why does Joe Biden care whether they get vaccinated or not. It's the third rap, Mama, it's the third rail. Go ahead,

guess yuh um. It's like the righteousness right you. There there are people for better for worse that think they're like the moral high ground because they're they're doing this, and ultimately it's all hypocritical because they think that they're doing this not only for themselves, but they're doing this for like the mass population, they're doing this for the wellness of everybody, when in reality, it's like if you were that truly genuine, you would be doing other things

in your life that have a positive impact on society and for all in tents of purposes. I hate saying this the cynic in me, but do you think about celebrities and athletes and politicians. The only reason they donate money to charity is because it gives them some tax sheltering. It's not because they're actually doing out of the goodness of their heart. And then on top of that, there's nothing like giving away time for worthy causes as opposed

to money. Any asshole can run a check. But it's like you put in time for any kind of honorable service that's given back to the community, then that really puts um that really puts your your obviously the way that you are to the test, like that that moral high ground that you kind of um elevate to the to the masses. So I don't know, man, I you know I would answered you know, I would answer it differently.

I mean to me, it's these have been around some of these people over the years, have been in the media business around some of these people, and they they think of the normal folk, the hoi poloy as. They were raised by wolves and they're your caveman and carnivores and knuckle draggers and all of those things, and and so they they have to help them out. But you're

absolutely right on the charity thing. And this is something I bring this up every time an athlete does something for charity and then proceeds to run to ESPN to get it promoted or you know, you know what I mean. And and and people think I'm bitter and all this stuff. But but the the charity, like the good myths, I think charity should be done anonymously. I believe that I do this rant rant all the time. And I was raised this way, and I believe I was raised properly.

That it is. You know, it's my belief that the value of a donation is reduced if you received praise for right it. And and this is the way I was raised, that you should do good things for people, but not to get the attention you shouldn't you should be is if you give anonymously, that guarantees that your mo your your donation, your motivation was purely all toruistic because there's no chance of you getting acknowledged none. But if you do it so you get your name on

a building or something along, well you're okay. You have a different different look on that. Yeah, anyway, all right, moving on. Thank you Dan Pierre from Springfield. Right, so, he says, I only have one question. Have you secured a remote studio in Augusta, Georgia the general area, so you can continue to broadcast during your Master's trip. Uh No, Pierre. I didn't run that by my wife though, and she was not totally against it. But I didn't look at the calendar, and I have a trip in March. I

have to I have to miss a few shows. I have to go to North Carolina. My sister in law is getting married in North Carolina, so I have to go there. So I don't know that my wife will be cool with me going to North Carolina, flying back to Cali, and then two weeks later flying back to to Georgia. So I don't know that's gonna work. But I would love to do that at the at the Masters. That would be cool. He also says Pierre A. K Alfio pineer Benn, I'm trying not to derail or hijack

the podcast as I did last week. Yeah, the introvert in me, as well as the fact that I am extremely frugal, suade me from tackling the masses at the Big E. Much of my stomachs, much of my stomach Dismay alf says, I am sure that you and your sidekick are extremely disappointed to me. Yeah, so we spent twenty minutes talking about food at the Big E and he didn't show, he says, but fear not, But fear not. I am providing you with a Facebook link to the established that my wife and I chose to eat our

cheat meal at. And by cheat meal, I mean ice cream And he says, there's a link here. You can't see it, guest, because we're on a podcast. But he says, if you you will drive down a rabbit hole of ice cream porn. This establishment serves what are called ice cream bombs. Uh not wanting Big Brother to come knocking by spelling them word out, he says, my my chocolate and rolled was this is my My wife and I

each had a Reese's Peanut butter Bomb. It consisted of vanilla soft serve with peanut buttered core, which is then dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed peanut butter cup and served in a waffle cone. But not one waffle cone too. That sounds good with with innermost waffle cone having been dipped in chocolate. And he did send a picture here. I'm looking at it, he says. As soon as the sports book is legalized in Massachusetts, you'll need to plan a big eat ice cream and leaf peeping

a meat and greet. Well, I would love to come back, you know, I love Massachusetts, Alf, and I haven't been there in a couple of years, and I would love to come back and hang out with the natives. That does look pretty good. But my favorite ice cream dessert, guestcoun We've been through this before. Is I'm a traditionalist. I like the two chocolate chip cookies and then the the big thick double scoop ice cream in the middle, um and it and it is just wonderful. It's my favorite. Asert.

I'm I'm very simple. I'm a simple man. But but you said, Alf does not sound bad. The Reese's peanut butter cut My wife loves peanut butter. She would love that even more than me. But that looks really good. And again, Alf, I'm on a fast here and now I'm gonna have to go out and eat, and I'm gonna think of that. I'll have to get ice cream somewhere. Heat.

I believe our buddy from New Orleans, he writes, and he says Ben, and David, he says, for Ben, have you ever earned the rest of your twenty dollars from the video game app. No, no, what a scam. What a scam? That word game that I was playing. I gave up. I moved on. What am I playing these days? I'm playing Tetris. That's my new Michigas. It's a lot of a lot of I loved. Yeah, I'm old school, flashing back to my younger days. It's simple. I can play a game in three minutes. And you know, there's

a bunch of commercials, but I don't care. I gave up. I realized that anything that offers you money by playing is bullshit, and I'm not playing those games anymore. Who else do we have? Let's see page down, page down. I think this is from Adrian in the Mile High City, He says, Ben I was. I ride my bike to and from work every day. By the way, Adrian, I did get your hats. One of them does fit. The other one does not. Unfortunately, I'll give that one to

Gascon next time I see him. But thank you. He gave me one of his work hats, so I gotta wear that. Remember to wear that, he says. I bike to and from work every day as long as the weather is good. In Colorado. During my ride home from work Friday afternoon, the chain fell off the track on my bike as I was peddling the pedaling. The pedal continued its rotation and smashed into the back of my calf and my foot got caught in between the pedal

and the ground. As you might imatched, this was quite painful, and Adrian tells the story. Toughed it out there and he had he had son had a football practice. A good dad, good doting father, you gotta take care of the kids. Go to football practice. And he sat through the football practice. The pain grew worse by the time he got home. He pulled the shoe and the sock off and found that his big toe was the size of what he thinks Lizzo and Bartolo Cologne's foot would

look like. And he did say, he did say, here, guess he'd finally apped out. He said no, mass. His wife took him to the emergency room, and he thought his right big toe was broken in the accident because it was swallowen, but X rays were negative. But they told him he had significant damage to the cartilage around his big toe, and so the doctor recommended taking a week of rest, ice and elevation, and so he emailed me. He took a photo here his foot is elevated in

the air everywhere, ice pack wrapped around it. That's that's not good. And he says, have either of you ever injured your foot toes similar to what I have done? I have. I've injured my toe, not on a bike, but I I've often had shoes that didn't fit right because I have big feet, and my toes have been all black, and I've lost several big toe nails that I have had to fall off because of how bad

my I treat my toes over the years. And when I go to get a manny and I go into the you know, the Manny Petty place, they look at me and they give me the desk there. They give me the desk there. But anyway, so I feel better. Adrian limping around the mile, I said, you had a similar issue too. Yeah, actually you know, I got yeah busted tone of busted ankle in a car accident and it was brutal to lock on. And I tried playing

in a football game four days later. It was like I was it was like I had a cinder block attached to that foot. It was crazy. Yeah, that's that's not good. Let's see, who do we have Jonathan the Jailer, John the Jailer. I think that's what we called in Pennsylvania, says my daughter Riley, junior mouth Emotion re member, is currently taking up the flute. Have you ever played an instrument?

If so, do you have any advice? I was in the band in elementary school, but I played what was I forget the name of the instant was the biggest instrument in the in the in a like a it's like a violin, but it stands up and it's really you gotta be tall. And I did play an instrument, but I pretty much was in the back and I just was there. Everyone else was knew what they were doing, and I just kind of pretended like I knew what

I was doing. That's it. And uh, I think we're out of time, so we will not have a chance to get to Kevin in Kansas, my Man Valls Fan, Jimmy, Jason and Rocky Mount Virginia and James in Greensboro. Thank you all for sub many questions. But Giscon's got places to go, things to do and things and whatnot, so well, I would keep going guest, I mean you you have to go, right, I mean, I'm not wrong in that it was up to me we keep going. But anyway,

I have a great rest of your Sunday. I'll be back in the Magic radio box tonight tonight tonight tonight, talking football and even a little baseball. Have a great rest of your weekend and we'll catch you then