Super Sized Quarantine

pandemic is gonna stop a podcast. I mean, please, I know where the crossroads apparently in the sporting world, but it has been a wild week. It has really been Mr Toad's wild right. But we are here to enlighten you. And we figured since there are no sports going on, uh and it will not be going on, we we

can in this podcast. Let's be honest. We were ahead of the curb on this because we have not really talked much sports ever since this thing launched, other than Benny versus the Penny, where we were breakdown NFL games. So we we've now we we were ahead of the turning point of society where everything's on hold, it appears for at least a month, and everyone's walking on eggshells right now. Trying to figure out what to do, and so, uh,

we're gonna do something a little different on this podcast. Unfortunately, the the illness is not caused. Yes, gone to call in sick. He is still here, fully operational, Ben Maller, Yes, fully operational. We were we were immunized, right, I mean that's kind of what I went down to you right when we bust this thing open in September. Well, we're not really any think about it. We're not real. We live in the magic radio box or podcast box, so

we're not really real. People, were just figments of your imagination as a listener. So we really have nothing to worry about, nothing to worry But but my goodness, guest, gun I used to have nightmares when I was growing up, you know, in the business I started when I was nineteen, and I was like, I would have like these what what happens if there was no sports? And um, what would I talk about? And uh, and here we go. We will find out over the next month what is

going to happen? Hoot thickens. How is this any different though, from when we get into the dog days of summer or there's only Major League Baseball going on? Well, it's much different. I'll tell you why. Number one, we are looking ahead. There's there's other drama involved with you know, plots in the story about in summer in June, for example, which everyone bitches about in sports radio, the industrial complex of sports radio. They complain about June. But in June,

we're about a month away from training camp. We're about a month away. There's that second wave of free agency in the NFL, which carries the conversation. You also have the NBA Draft to the finals, have ended the drafts right around that time. Then you're looking ahead to be a free agency. Like I used to have a program director and we would go over the sports count. It's like everything is kind of choreographed, like through thirtain certain periods of the year. Now, yeah, there's not as much

meat on the bone. It's like getting in June. It's like getting a chicken wing where there's just a little bit of meat on the bone. But yeah, I mean, I I guess it's the The comp would be if you look at this like real estate. Number two, the comp would be nine eleven. And I was on the radio back then and we did shows and Fox Sports Radio kept moving on. But the sports world in September of one, there was no NFL. For a brief period

of time, there was no um Major League Baseball. But it didn't I don't think it didn't last a month. I think it was maybe a week or a couple of weeks, and then everything kind of moved back. But this, this appears, by all indications we're getting as we were recording this podcast, it looks like it's going at last

at least a month now. Now for the sake of the for the sake of continuity, Ben, since you have you had developed a certain NFL book them uh topic throughout the course of the calendar year in the National Football League, will we have anything or will you have anything that showcase with an NBA quarantine book them? You know, I was actually thinking about since the n c A tournament. I don't know if I should give this out right now, and maybe by the time you hear this, I will

have already used this on the radio. Probably not, but I was thinking about doing a bracket of deadly plagues, right like where where would the coronavirus? Would it be a one seed or a two seed? We don't know. I would say it's probably like a ten seed right now. The coronavirus um you gotta put as your number one seeds. The bubonic play, that's gotta be number one. UM, Spanish flu famous, that's always a good one. Typhoid fever um,

you could put that on there. Uh, you know, any scarlet fever, black plague would be a number one seed. I would think H one N one, Yes, a sars ebowl. Uh. Some of the more modern how about West Nile where does what the hell do you do with the West Nile virus? Where do you put the West now by? What about the African swine fever? What do you do

with that? What about hepatitis? That's a good one, that is a that is I mean, so listen, I mean there's a lot if you if I would have put this together, I mean, you go down the list there. What about just the momps? You know? Does that smallpox? Basic smallpox? Uh, there's a lot that has to go into this. I gotta go in and meet with people. And because you know, not every pandemic is the same. Yeah, they're not all equal. So so you put it at

high as ten. But consider the fact of how our n C double A brackets typically are you wouldn't slot the one virus as a twelve. You would have put it as a live dog anywhere I would put it in as a ten. Yes, um, because people have moved past the stage of reasonability. So you gotta when you put the bracket together, guess on the deadly plagues bracket, and you've got a really factor in uh public perception.

It's like it's kind of like how the Lakers every year when they have a decent team or the favorites to win the championship, not out of Vegas, not necessarily because the Lakers are actually going to win, but it's because of liability. And there's a lot of dummies that like the Lakers that bet in Vegas on the Lakers. So it's a way to cover themselves in case the Lakers end up winning. And so when you put the

bracket together, you have to factor in. Listen, if I if I put the coronavirus is a ten and then I have malaria as a twelve, well you know I'm covering myself because malaria is not as popular as the coronavirus. More people are gonna bet on the coronavirus because that's what's going on right now so, and then at the you know, at the bottom, you can go to like the very regional biblical plagues, the swarms of locusts right from the Bible. You can put that in there. Boom done,

And they still have swarms of locust though. That's crazy to me that we still have in certain parts of the country swarms of locusts. So the Spanish flu was originally what nineteen eighteen, right, it was the influenza epidemic. Uh, that sounds right true eighteen and nineteen nineteen. So I gotta put you in the spot. I hate doing this, but if we have all these one seeds or twos or threes, where is our sixteen? Where is the the

umbc the defeated Virginia two years ago? Like we're well, I guess sixteen would be like a basic common cold. That would be a sixteen, which is not a daily but people do, I I guess occasionally from the cold if you've got pre existing health conditions. So I would put you know, because the cold. Nobody gets worried when they have the cold. Who the hell cares about the cold? You gotta maybe a day off. I just sucked some garlic and I'm good. You know, That's how I do it.

So if we went back in reverse, then you'd probably go cold and then pneumonia right at Yeah, I think that's not a bad call on that. You know, I really have to look down when you get down. I don't even know if we have sixteen seats. I don't even know if we would have that. I mean, you're also what do you do? I know this is not technically a deadly plague, but if you drink enough of it, it is. How about what do you do with the water in Flint, Michigan? Is that is that a live

like a nine? A nine seed? Is that higher than the coronavirus? Because you got to think about that. I mean, you're drinking. You need water to survive, um, so you know, and then what about the classical HIV which was a very very big and and still people get HIV. It's although Magic Johnson's got it and he's is healthier than anybody. Um, And so yeah, well, like when you think about this at night, how much of an asshole do you got

to be to think about this? Just on the moments of cancelation with the n C Double A Tournament and Major League Baseball being postponed and the anhel suspending their season. Like how Like what level of of asshole are we for talking about this? Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Um. Well, I'm trying to kill time on a podcast, and I'm also planning on doing this.

I'm planning to doing this on the radio at some point if I haven't already done it. But no, because this listen. Uh, desperate times call for desperate measures. Now, I believe that you hack radio is over the holidays, and I've been a great advocate against hack radio, but my position is evolving here, guess gun. Let me tell you, okay, because the reason I argue against hack radio and you know, Christmas or Thanksgiving is because spoiler alert, their ship going on.

You don't have to go down to that level. It's just a sign of being lazy, right, It's a sign of being lazy. I'm not saying you can always have to break new ground, but there's stuff going on. I just gotta dig a little deeper. Now. I will argue that for the next month that I might have to do you when your guests gon radio list radio, you know, Mount Rushmore Radio. Who are your top four football coaches of all time? Belichick's number one? You put Lombardi too?

What about Bill Walsh? A legend from the forty niners? What do you do with you know? Do you look at the Dolphins and the success they had Parcels under Shula? Uh? Yeah, Parcels didn't win enough though, right if we didn't win the big one enough? Yeah? What do you do? What do you how about any read great regular season coach? Where does he rank? But we can't do that to the listeners. And I think that the fortunate thing for you is that you have a base that doesn't overreact.

I think you have a meat and potato based audience that's built in. Like if you don't need a lot of dressing or sour kroud or onion, well, well well we will the show will go on, so we will find things to talk about it. I have a feeling will be really micro analyzing and putting random comments made by athletes on Instagram and Twitter, and we will put those under the microscope and we will then do entire monologues about a random tweet from from someone. So I

have a feeling will get a lot of that. But but is there is there anything that tops the image? Now, like Rudy Gobert touching microphones before getting sick. Well, he was trying to be funny, and you know, no good deed goes unpunished, and he thought he was funny. He didn't think he was Uh, you know, who cares? You know, I'll be I'll be the jokes or see, there's nothing to worry about here and there you go, Wow, well we're not killing time here, Ben, So what's on the

menut today? All right? So this is going to be the first of what could become a regular feature on their show. I love documentaries, can't get enough of documentary. So for the first time in the history of The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller and that other guy, guess gone, we will have a Cisco and Ebert stat's old school that's before your time, guest, before my time. I watched clips on YouTube, but a Cisco and Ebert type of review, which do you know Cisco and Libert was the inspiration

for Pardon the Interruption. Yes, they positioned that show as a homage to Cisco and Ebert because Michael Wilbon from Chicago, and those guys were Chicago guys. But uh so we'll review a movie. We'll we'll go I'm to dig deep here. I I gave Gascon a homework assignment. I told you to watch the movie. I watched it twice, actually, well three times, really part of it for a third time. I very rarely do this. Uh it's I mean, I really have to like something for me to watch it

three times. So that's gonna most of what it's gonna be about. Well, we'll get a grab bag in actual questions by actual listeners. We gotta study this and don't stick to sports if Gascon's got anything there. Um so, so we'll get right into it. Yes, yes, of course. All right, so we we begin the name of the movie, which I guess is kind of important. It is supersize me too, Holy Chicken. And the cool thing about this you don't have to go to the movie theater because

nobody can. Everyone's in quarantine. It's free. It's on YouTube. I hooked up I got a cable, I hook up my my phone to my television, and I watched this thing like I was in theater mode and it was awesome. It's a film by Morgan Spurlock, the man behind the original Supersize Me Too. And the plot it's a documentary. But the plot is this guy who was you know

big I hate fast food. You know this is terrible and honestly, well, now he's decided to open his own fast food chicken joint and and uh so, so he goes to Columbus, Ohio, the test they say, the test market capital of America. Now, when I was growing up, gascon Peoria, Illinois was the test market capital of America. I guess it's moved now to Columbus, Ohio. Well, it's one of the second I think it's ranked either one or two now in the middle of America, the Midwest

countries or Midwest cities in the United States. So it makes sense you either Columbus, Ohio is ranked number two. Yeah, it's either one or two. Right now, what what ranking are you looking at in terms of population and growth? Yeah, you got Chicago. I think you have Chicago Columbus and you might swap those orders, and then I believe you go down to Charlotte. Charlotte's not in the Midwest. Well, I'm talking about cities itself, like mid market cities. What

about Nashville, I don't know. It's a good question. Austin, Texas where all the woke people live. No, they're here in Los Angeles. I'm so so sick and tired of woke people. Why we got l A. We have San Francisco, we have New York, we have uh, Portland. I don't want to get away from the super woke people that are offended by everything in practice virtue signaling. I just need a break. I just enough. So we got Milwaukee, that's in there, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, Growing, I don't know

about that, Traverse City, Michigan. Indie. Yeah, Indie's cool. I've been to India. That's a hiptown. I like Indie. Yeah. I'm down for Columbo, though I've never been to Cleveland. I've never been to Columbus. I don't think I've ever been. I've been in Ohio a few times, but I've never been to Columbus. H alright, So so anyway, the documentary it focuses in on Big Chicken. Did you know there was such a thing as Big Chicken? I did not,

but it makes sense now that I saw it. Uh, This is crazy, the numbers, and you should never give too many numbers out on an audio broadcast because people aren't taking notes and they can't visualize the numbers. But just imagine here that there are over twenty billion chickens around the globe. There's more than three chickens for every

human on Earth. I learned that from the documentary, which I guess makes sense right when you think about you know, chickens kind of a small bird, and there's a lot of there's a lot of people, but people are bigger and they take up more space. The most farmed animal on the planning the chicken. Now, with piggy backing off of that number one bill and chicken sandwiches are eaten a year. Yeah, well, they say that Wendy's, McDonald's and chick fil A go through about one point four billion

pounds of chicken per year. That's three point seven million per day, forty three pounds of chicken per second. They getcord to this documentary that people are eating now full disclosure of the band. When when we when we eat fat like we eat like fat asses. And let's say the places that we go to McDonald's, Jack in the box, Burger King, Wendy's, Chick fil A, Karls Jr. Raising Kanes. How many of those places you actually eat chicken sandwiches at. You know, I'm more of a chicken strip guy, but

I'm still eating chicken. I when I used to go to Windy's back in the day, I love the Windy's chicken sandwich. I've almost never got burgers at Wendy's. I always got the chicken sandwich at Windy's, the fried chicken sandwich, and I got a side of nuggets and I got it upsized. And I love that. My wife loves Chick fil A. The families all about the Chick fil A. But I'm you know, I'm fine. It's not terrible, but it's not as good as raising canes. Wow, not see.

I I only eat burgers at in and Out or Carls Jr. But if you go to McDonald's, chicken, McNuggets, Chick fil A spicy chicken sandwich. If I go to Jack in the Box, it's always two tacos and two chicken sandwiches, and it's like five bucks, so it's pretty well prized. Such a pig, I am. I'm fat. When I watched this bed. I had two thoughts, I want to eat and don't want to throw up. Yeah, my wife when we were watching it, she's like, I forced

her to watch it, and she was into it. She was and and she's like, I guess we're not eating chicken anymore. I'm know I'm eating chicken. I mean not, you mean I don't know. I'm so I'm not gonna stop my eating my chicken. Um, but it's crazy. We're more likely to eat chicken than we are beef. Now, chicken overtook beef a couple of years ago, according to this. This the movie supersize me too now because this all was intertwined, so peopill know this when they start watching it.

But the way that the marketing worked was fantastic. Yeah yeah, I'm gonna get into that. But the marketing is unbelieving. But the way that they mentioned that with the chicken supplanting beef, well that that thing that goes just into the way that it's prepared right cooked and and exact people, the chicken sandwich has become the new the new burger, and it's it's the number one sandwich in America. And we'll get to that. But but wait, there's more numbers.

Guesscot I have more numbers. I scribbled down some more numbers and numbers. Uh, there are nine plus billion. They call them the Ross cross large double breasted chicken. Right, I didn't know. I've never heard of this. Have you ever heard of this? I'm not really in the poultry business, but this is the fastest growing broiler chicken hatch each year. Did you did you see the numbers on this? This

stood out for me too. Yeah, these are bread for the meat obviously, because you know in the poultry game. But six weeks after they hatch, they are ready to be sent to the slaughter house and go to the dinner table. Six weeks lifespan of six weeks. I I could not believe the process from start to finish about how Morgan actually developed his his own little farm with an Alabama Right, he went to Alabama. Yeah, the creator was in Alabama. He actually drove up for the for

the grand opening. And the monopoly that's amongst the Chicken and Tyson Chicken in particular, it really controls the market. Well that's big chicken. Yeah, that's big chicken. But but just to follow up here on the the Ross crosses, large, double breasted, fastest growing brother chicken. Um. They say, seventy years. They've been researching this for seventy years. Let's do the math on the what are we looking at nineteen fifty roughly? Yeah,

pretty good math. And they they're they're bragging about the research. It's selective breeding. And from originally when they started this seventy years ago, it took between sixteen and twenty weeks for a chicken to be big enough to go to to make a chicken sandwich, and it's down to six weeks. Every year they take a day off the breeding at the time it takes. So, I mean, given enough time, are we looking at a chicken being hatched and then a week later it's ready to go to the slaughterhouse.

That's dangerous and and the most profitable chickens to be had are the males. That's right, baby, half about let's hear it for the boys. Come on, ladies, sorry bad yet by you. Chicks and females are are obviously low on the totem pole of the slaughter Males the top dog and the most profitable. Yes, and this is this is crazy. You just see that they had a little graphy. Yeah, I don't give everything away, but I don't care. I mean, most people are gonna watch it, but you should watch it.

If you watch it, I don't think this is any giving too much away. Who cares? Um. So they said, if a human being, a child was born and grew at the same rate as the modern day broiler chicken, a two month old baby it's sixty days in the life, would weigh six hundred and sixty pounds. That's a fat baby. That was a fat baby. But it's plus plus minus the fake grill marks on the baby, right yeah, oh yeah, well, yeah, exactly. But the ninety plus percent of consumers are going for

the fried or crispy aversion rather than the grilled. And uh and and it's really interesting, And I love that I won't getting in the marketing stuff because I this is right in my wheelhouse. And I have ranted about

weasel words and sports and advertising for years. I remember when I had an epiphany and I read in a book that the term best was it was a wet term, and that just set me off on a course in my life where I then wanted to learn about weasel words because, uh, in the advertising there were lawsuits about you know this place, this, you know Pastrami Shack will just use that as an example, said they had the

best post Tommy sandwich in the world. Um, and then so somebody's sued and all that, and they determined that the legal definition and advertising for the term best is as good as everything else in that category. Meaning you can have seventeen thousand mom and pop sandwich shops that all have the world's best sandwich. And I just blew

me away. That's stuck with me and I when seeing the marketing weasels take over in this documentary, this new Morgan Spurlock documentary, I guess we came out last year, but I just saw it's free on YouTube. Now. Um, the health halo, that was a good one that Now, this is what marketing people do, is they have associated as certain terms, asociated with certain products that are only there to make you feel healthier. I mean, they call it the health halo. Shouldn't we do that in sports radio?

Shouldn't we do terms that make us seem more you know, on the ball and yeah, but how many guys have that kind of diversity with their language. That's the other thing too, It's almost like real estate. Ben You know this, like you can't have the old terminology as you can't have a mansion in a ghetto, and you can't have a ghetto surrounded by mansion. So this kind of goes back to your point about the unhealthiest food is surrounded

by all this green. They do it not only in the food itself, but in the ambiance of all the venues like McDonald's, a Chick fil A, a Burger King, like the wall, the writing on the cup, everything. There's these little mind tricks that they've figured out by studying human nature. And but the some of the examples they used in the documentary, they use terms like friends, natural, hand crafted, artisan, free range, free range, homemade, that's that's

also one. And crispy not friede Yeah, frieda has evolved. You gotta get it right here, guests Friday evolved to crispy Yeah. And I didn't even notice because I'd always say when I would go to Wendy's back in my big eaten days, and I'd get the chicken sandwich combo, I like the fried chicken sandwich combo, and I was that upsized, and I want some fried chicken nuggets. But now it's crispy. At some point I was not paying attention and I failed, I failed society and it became crispy.

How about this natural natural, all natural farm to table. That's a big one, right, better for you means nothing. None of those terms mean anything. Hormone free, hormoard freeze another one, hordmoorde freeze another one. Then they also explained the difference between natural or organic, because most people think now is organic and that's not the case at all. Yeah,

I mean, and they make organic. But this was very eye opening for my wife who, unfortunately, and she's admitted to it, when she goes to the store, she sees terms like fresh natural, farm to table and gets very excited and wants to buy those products because they usually they she assumes you assume the position that they're better for you. I get it. Um. But then they talked about younger people who look for quality and gredience. They want transparency, they said, and you know what are the

additives of preservatives? And you mentioned free range or cage tree, which was a big part of the documentary. But to can continue this train of thought, marketing, weasels we have deceptive advertising. All natural they claim, and this was this, This really stuck out to me in this documentary. The most misleading claim in the poultry meat business is all natural because, as you said, the average person thinks it's organic and it's not. Did you see this is this

is so Weasley. This is like one of the great Weasley things I've ever ever watched or heard about. All natural a court of the United States Department of Agriculture means minimally processed, no artificial ingredients. But here's the key part. It only means what happens after the animal has been killed. It has nothing to do with how the animals raised. Now, that is outstanding. And by law they say you cannot add hormones to paltry, so it's impossible. But yet they

still claim no added hormones. They're not allowed to add hormones. And one of the things, because people might be asking, how is this even possible? How do they get around this? Well, Morgan actually discovers and through Q and A that the U. S d A they don't have enough money to be testing these animals for any kind of hormones, so they just believe it from from the suppliers, from the farmers, and it's called the honor system because they're doing the

honor system with the food. The honor system. Think about does the honor system ever work? My dad when I was a kid, my my old man would he was his parents smoked, all my grandparents smoked, and my my dad was like also against smoking when I was growing up, and he would go in these rants about smoke. They used to have vending machines selling cigarettes and then you know, based on the honor system, and he would just those two nagers, they don't want honor the honor system. They're

buying those cigarettes. You know you're going Nobody honors the honor system. Who honors the honor system? Nobody? Ex quick question, was that the most eye popping thing for you? Or was it the free rage quote unquote patio. Well, that was also great. That that was good, but the fact that you know these miss leading I mean, you cannot add hormones, but yet they brag about no added hormones. Yeah you can't, You're not allowed to do it. The

cage free thing was good though, that is another misleading thing. Uh. Meat chickens in the United States have never been raised in cages. So when you say cage free that's another one of those things. It's you know you it's not true. It's never been true. Uh, and then humanly raised. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven p m. Pacific. Did you see they said that the people that make the

chicken are allowed to determine what that means. I think it goes back to the part where they were mentioning where you have the farm itself, but you can't have the chicks. And then eventually chickens outside for long period of time, either because the temperatures are so hot, these chickens will die from a heart attack because how fast they grow. Yeah. And in the documentary, if watch this and you know, God knows you should. Uh. The cage free thing was was great and free range that was

a big part of this. And they actually had the area which was just like what is it a couple of feet its feet, it's like a chick paddock. It was like a patio. It was like a chicken chicken patio to go ahead and see the sun and uh. And the cool thing about that, as they determined even if the chickens don't actually choose to go outside. If they have the option of going outside, it counts as free range, right is that? Is that right? Free range?

And uh in the U s d A. Again, they will if you vouch for the safety of the food, they will just rubber stamp. Was just And the other thing that was great, you know, following the weasel mantra, which we're talking about right now, is the fact that they said in the documentary that a lot of these terms, these very woke terms such as free range, GMO, free gamely raised, these came from protesters. These were the activists against the chicken industry, and the Chicken is just like, funk, damn,

we'll just copy their terms, and they did. It's unbelievable. I mean, these these people that were running around, you know, trying to change the chicken business. The chickens is like, oh, fuck it, we won't change it anything were We'll just you know, we'll just use these terms. Now. I did come to a realization. I didn't know this from from the dock until they showed it. But I didn't realize that Chick fil A has a lot of msg and their sandwiches, Well, that's the key to get people. It's

a way to get people hooked on food. Yeah, that's the sugar, right, that's pretty much that that's your that's your fix for keep craving. Yeah exactly. Um, well, wouldn't mean if you were, like, you know, a young mom and you wanted your kids hooked on your food, just put msg in your food at home, you can your kid will never leave home. Kid will be like, um, you know, or your dad. I don't care mom or dad even crazy. Now, getting away from just this for a second, has there ever been a food or drink

that you've ever been addicted to? And? Oh god you I was a soda attict, man. I would go to seven eleven, get the super giant big golf, I fill it up. I drink about half of it in the seven eleven, and then I'd go back fill it up again before I checked out of the seven eleven. I love soda. I I believe a lot of my obesity came from drinking soda. Yeah, the sugary. I loved it. Man, It's empty calories. And you know now that I'm gonna,

you know, angry middle age loser. I look back at that and think about some of the the amazingly poor life choices I made, uh in the food department? What about you, guests? Do you think I was worse or better off because I went down the road of energy drinks. So when I was like twenty or twenty one, our whole thing was go to Vegas in order red Bull Vodkas, so you can stay up all day, all night for four to forty hours. And I've been on edgy drinks

ever since. That that can kill you quicker because you can have a heart attack. Yeah, yeah, And I didn't win. It's a long term thing. When you drink soda, you get the illnesses as you age. Now and that's the other thing too, is because I didn't know this, but some of the Instagram accounts that I follow, a couple of the guys are or heavy into life changing experiences, like guys that have been big and now are leaned

out or whatever. But they'll do like five to ten minute testimonials, and what they do is they diagram the ingredients on energy drinks and say okay, like for Bang Bang is an example where it shows that there's no sodium and there's no sugar, and they label it, they

advertise it. There's creating all this other stuff B C A S. And then you read the fine label and then there's other ingredients in there that are actually sugars, but you don't see it because it's so fun in print that you ignore it because you see the other things that pop out at you when you know, with the naked eye. So yeah, I've been like that with Bang with five, our Energy, with Red Bulls, with rock stars, like all those drakes. I'm guilty as charged. I never

got into it. And I remember when Red Bull kind of came on the scene and I was working in radio at the time and they were giving the radio station. I worked at a lot of free product as a way to get the people on the radio to use it. And I mean whenever you wanted a Red Bull, there was like cases of it down the hall. And I never really got into it too much, but there were people that were completely addicted to the Red Bull. They did not get enough of it. I mean Vegas for me,

that's what it was like early two thousand's. It was red Bull and vodka and the lounger a club and they stayed up all day. You stayed up all night and then you eventually crashed, but it was after your weekend extravaganzas. So, yeah, it was really bad, and obviously, looking back at it now, it's pretty reckless. But that's what you do in your twenty one or twenty two yep. So continuing on with the documentary, though, I I love words and I like to I feel like I'm self educated.

I didn't really didn't pay attention in school, and I feel like I've learned more since I got out of school than I learned in school, because I try to learn a different word too every day and try to figure out if they're they're too long to pronounce, if I could use them in my lexicon. I did not know of the word boucolic. Were you aware of the word bucolic? You know what that means? They used it in the documentary, So I went to the Google and

I looked it up. I went to the interweb and they because they talked about this boucolic, I think I'm pronouncing it correct. Maybe I'm not. Uh, this boucolic notion that what goes on on the farm in America is just like when you grew up and you have those little farm toys and all that. But boucolic means relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside or country life. Now it's kind of like another and a synonym for that would be like rusted. Okay, so does this correspond

to the Wendy's barn that's in their logo? Was that

what it was? I'm not I don't remember that part of it, but there was some marketing guy that was pretty good, and he was like talking about how um essentially the people have this idea of what farming is like because when they were kids playing with little toys, you know, when you see and I had the same toys, and you probably did, we all did you know I had the little farm set with your tractor and your barn and your cow and your check in and all that stuff and uh and then the other thing which

and I have repeated this a couple of times this week, and it is true. And I learned this a while ago about human nature that people do not take in stuff through fact. They take in stuff through stories. And this is problematic with the coronavirus, for example, because you have the facts and you have the story, and the

stories are really scaring the ship out of everyone. The facts for most people not that bad, but people are hearing and learning and and consuming like a sponge the stories, and they're not going with the facts, and that becomes problematic. Now when you've traveled across the United States been have you ever gone with a city where it was freezing cold that you had to wear ear and hand mits? Oh yeah, sure, I absolutely have been to several cities like that. So that was one of the funnier parts

of this documentary. It's early on, it's probably about twenty or thirty minutes in, but what Morgan does is he bounces between every fast food restaurant, and when he went to Burger King to order a chicken chicken sandwich, he actually took one bite of it and the entire chicken filet the patty was hollow, so he fingered it with that. He put three fingers through it. It looked like many mits Mark tape. Yeah, it's pretty much. It's like, oh my gosh, that is that's exactly what we eat, right,

just empty. Yeah, and yeah, it was pretty I you know, no no knocking Burger King, but I've had that same experience. I used to go with the Burger King chicken sandwich, which is elongated. The Burger King chicken sandwich long geting because my grandfather, may he rest in peace, loved Burger King. He loved Pizza Hut and Burger King with his two favorite restaurants. So we go out with Grandpa. He was the Yiddish guy from Massachusetts, and we go out with him,

and he he spoke Yiddish. I learned the Yiddish words from him. But we'd go to like Burger King and he'd get like a whopper burned up through the grill twice. That's where I learned to love my my love of overcooked foods. And then Pizza Hut too, And I remember him taking napkins with Pizza Hut pizza back years ago and as a kid, and sucking the the grease and and going through like a whole, like seventeen napkins to get all the oil and grease off the very top

of the chick of the pizza man. But and the other thing, did you see? The part that stood out to me too, is that that every company has to have a story. You have to have an advertising campaign which is a story. You can't just say, hey, my food is better. You have to tell them why your

food is better. You've gonna weave a good tail. Yeah, But that's where these marketing directors and executives and content creators come in, and it is absolutely fascinating just to see how they can awind those words, Like you mentioned the language that's around that, because those words will pop up at you and because you think, well, because you've never seen it before, never used in that kind of

a sphere. It gives you like that warm, comforting feeling along with the colors and the atmosphere of the building themselves that you order in. Oh and then the packaging, Yeah, the packaging is a good one with that. But essentially big takeaway is that we're we're all guinea pigs and the food companies are counting on us to follow human behavior to increase their sale. I mean they even said

in there, they said listen. Uh. The companies do market research, which obvious everyone in business does market research, but you they determine if people buy more food because there's salads

on the menu. They put salads on the menu even if and I think they said in part of this maybe I maybe I just imagine this that they have the salads on the menu, but they don't really sell that they'll they'll put like two healthy items wrapped around a crispy chicken sandwich, and people will buy the crispy chicken sandwich somehow thinking because it's surrounded by to a nice,

supposedly healthy items that they're okay. Well, the amazing thing is that that market research, I think that's all goes all the way back up to the top of the food chain. No pun intended, but of the way that Tyson manipulates the market where they pay out on a tournament scale. It's a rig system. That's wild. Yeah, it is a wold, but I like this whole thing blew me away. Like the mark I keep going to the marketing stuff and then I didn't know about anything about

the rig system. I didn't know what the hell Big Chicken was. I had no idea what that was. Um, but just the whole, the whole thing that the free range part which we reference where the U. S d A allows you to use free range as long as the chickens have access to the outdoors, but they don't have to, you know, use it. It's just the whole

thing is just ridiculous. It's just craziness. The greenwashing, I think it was the term they used the food industry because consumers, they determined, want to feel like the businesses are being honest, and then you know you can trust the businesses. But it's still junk food. It's just repackaged junk food with a green label line a different way. But let's get into the rig system, because you're right. I mean, that's a big part of this, and I

feel bad. We have a lot of farmers that listen to the show, guys that get up early on the farm and and listen to the overnight show, which is I guess in morning show for them, and you know, getting up for the sunrises. Yeah, I mean this was brutal, man. This is what a bunch of scumbags. I mean, I gotta use a word bigger than Mama Luke and dingle Berry. How about assholes? How about that? Is that a good one? Greedy ass mothers? Yeah, so big chicken. They have farmers

competing against other farmers. It's not an equal playing field, and there have been some lawsuits. As you said, there's a tournament system, so they claim it's a merit based competition, but they pick farmer against other farmer, you know, grower, etcetera.

And and you're ranked. It's like, you know, how you have the power rankings every week when we used to have sports in America and they have power rankings every week and all that and uh, and they weigh how much you know, you ranked on how much the birds weigh and how much they eat and how many chickens survive and goes by and it goes I think it's one through eleven. That's how it was ranked between farmers that were uh supplying them, and they have a set amount.

It's the big pot. And then if you have the most successful chickens, that's great, you get the most money. If not, and on the surface, what's wrong with that, right, that's capitalism, because hey, if you do well, you should get more. The problem is, they explained in the documentary, is that Big Chicken dictates everything. So it's not a level playing field. Like they determine what birds you get, what you're supposed to feed them, and if you end

up getting a bunch of sick birds, doesn't matter. Right, they send you a bunch of female chickens that don't grow as fast as male chickens. Uh, fuck you, you're screwed. And then it's on top of that the racket even gets amplified because the way that like let's say, for example, I'm Tyson and you're a farmer, well to keep yourself in business, then I could sell to you a heater or a water pump or something else that puts you more in hock, and so you're more in debt while

trying to keep yourself afloat. At the same time, you're barely making ends meet because your chicks don't grow at the level of other competing farmers. Yeah, they they said in in the documentary. Obviously this is one side of the story. Big Chicken didn't respond. But the goal is to control these farmers, right. They want to get them just above the water or just a little bit below the water. And it's like a control mechanism to keep everyone under the thumb. And so they stay in lockstep

with Big Chicken. This is crazy. This is absolutely absolutely nuts um. And it's like a legal way, as they said in there, from from stealing from people. It was like, what's wrong with just you know, you're based on how many chickens you you get paid per chicken should be equal?

What's wrong with that? And and and the process doesn't change every month So if you and I were competing farmers, but if your way to grow the chickens was exactly the same month in and month out, something changes and or god forbid, if you speak up against Big Chicken, then you also get a demerit too. Oh yeah, they were that one of the guys that the guy in the documentary h he worked with Morgan Sport Spurlock. He Um pointed out that he had been blackballed, ostracized, whatever

term you want to use there because of that. But it's it's just nuts. And again, as you pointed out, we talked about it here. They dictate everything, so it's really nothing changes other than them, the Big Chicken people, and then you're you're fucked, all right. So time down for the final Mallard film review scale of one to ten. Now ten. I love these documentaries. I think one of the great documentaries I've seen in recent years it's been a couple of years was Get Me Roger Stone. I

recommended that to you guess. Remember, yeah, that's a ten. Uh, this documentary one to ten. I'm gonna give this a ten. Also, I believe this was a tent. I watched it multiple times. I mean, hell, we're doing a whole podcast about this. So on the Mallard scale of enjoyment, I put this as a tent. I learned new marketing terms I didn't know about. I learned about how farmers are getting fucked over. I didn't know about that. I love the whole advertising

human nature thing. I'm fascinated by how we're all wired and and how people don't even realize that they're being horn and winked hoodwinked rather than horne swaggle and all this. I I think it's great. So again, the movie is supersized me too, Holy Chicken by Morgan Spurlock. It is absolutely free on YouTube. Last I checked, it's like an hour and forty five minutes and I give it a ten. Guest gone, do you have a desk? On film score?

I think, unlike the Aaron hernana'z documentary that we talked a little bit about, this one is up there for so many reasons. I think the biggest one is it encompasses everything, and you as a consumer or you as a business owner, can relate to it in any kind of market that you're in. And I think Morgen was extremely thorough on this when he did his market research. It wasn't like he went to one ad agency. He went some multiple ad agencies. He went to his competitors.

And the best part Ben I think was he actually went to his biggest critics too, because he made several phone calls the chicken industry and executives that were like, hey, are you the guy that did the documentary and he said, yeah, I am. I'm also a farmer too, and you know, they obviously would avoid him ditches, phone calls, never return anything. But I thought it was great from start to finish.

Just the process alone would wake you up to how chickens are obviously produced, and then bread if you will, and then the finalized product. It was fun. So what's your one to ten? Yeah, alright, alright, but you are batting a thousand two for two on the recommendations with these uh these documentaries that I watch a lot of shitty documentaries, but when I see a good one, it's like, Wow,

I gotta tell everybody now. I want to tell everyone in the village I found a good documentary and uh, you know, it's kind of like that mcmillions thing, which I think is also a ten. And I'm gonna watch the final episode this weekend from h b O. That's also a wonderful documentary, but a lot of this stuff ship and and the fact that I stumbled upon this one on YouTube of all places, that that was like craziness but so but just the final is The final

takeaway though, is like I'm am I gonna stop eating chicken. No, I'm not gonna stop eating chicken. I'm not the only thing that will really changed about this. I feel bad for farmers. I don't know how I can help farmers. Maybe if you have an idea and how I can

help a farmer, that would be good. And then next time might go to a restaurant, I will notice all the subtle terms that I really haven't paid any attention to in the marketing, you know, all these little free range and all natural, the health halo um because that that that health halo thing, just that they kept referencing that. That blew me. So that's how this will affect Now. Do you think he was taunting the market when he because his menu actually had halos on certain food products too.

Do you think it looks like the angel's hat, the old angel's hat with the halo on the side, that's pretty damn good man. What provoked you to watch that? Anyway? Because it's an hour and forty minutes. Yeah, that's long. You know, every Friday, when I get done with the gym and I come home, I'm like, I always try to watch a documentary at least one during the weekend, and like, I've watched most of the stuff on Netflix.

So I was surfing around and I just stumbled upon on this out of I don't know how the hell it came up on my my computer, but I I'm always like Friday, I spend maybe twenty thirty minutes trying to find something to watch that night. Uh, and this just this happened and it was great, and so watch if you're in the documentaries, tell me if you agree

with the film review here. And we might have to do this every week now, guests, I might have to find until until things get back to normal, whatever the funk normal is in the sports world, we might have to get back to that, all right. So for engagement purposes then, because obviously getting Roger Stone was politics, this is for food. So what kind of genre would we go through next with the documentary we've done murder? I guess or sports, and um, yeah, you know, there was

one a couple of years ago. It was on Netflix about a music producer that was also a ten DR dre. No. No, it was about this like guy this uh, this random guy who had been associated with all these great music who had moved to Hawaii. I don't even remember the name of it now. I wish I did, because I'd have you watch it, and then I'd watch it again, and then we'd killed a podcast next week. If anybody knows, I'm very I'm not giving out a lot of details.

But he he it was a film, big, big movie, not movie, a big music mogul and had a very interesting life in Hollywood, worked with all these big music acts, was connected to like everybody in the business. And then he moved to Hawaii and he hung out and smoked weed with Willie Nelson and Don Nelson and uh and all that and in Maui And um, I don't remember. It was on Netflix a few years ago. I got look at it up. Then that's pretty good. I don't remember the name though, grab Bag you want grab bag?

Is it Quincy? No, that's not the name of it. Wait, wait, hold on, let me let me check hold a second to me, what you say Quincy, Yeah, Quincy documentary. No, hold on, let me see Travis Scott Homecoming. It's beyond say Quincy was one. No, it's not Quincy's about Quincy Jones, right, No, it's not that this is like an old white Jewish guy, you know. Uh so that's what that was about. But anyway, Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in

the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live. Al Right, so grab back. These are actual questions from actual listeners to the podcast, like yourself. Eric and Olmaha rights and he says, how much should we blame the ass trows for everything that has happened in the sports world so far this year? I say sixties percent? Astros thirty seven percent, Rob Manford

three percent. China From Eric and Olmaha, I'm gonna blame the person in Wuhan, China that decided to have some nice bat That's That's what I'm gonna blame. How about that? You know, crazy man, It's definitely crazy. I'll loope. From Mischian Penadera Pendejo have you ever heard of that in California? P e n d e j O. Yeah, I know what pendejo is. Alright, anyway, uh, he writes, and he says, I can't be the only one that thinks Chris Carter

looks like the California Raisin. Feel free to discuss. He sent a photo which obviously I can't show you right here. Um but uh, he I gotta tell you not uh not a bad reference. He does look like to me the California Raising. Chris Carter, who knew, oh yeah, formerly about pass on briefly, briefly event for this one. I don't know what he's doing these days. I don't know

it's got going on. By the way, that guy from Mission Viejo, where I used to hang out with the Saddleback College, which is right there, sandwiched right around between Rancho Santa Margherite. On one side, you had Laguna Hills, Forest Lake Forces right there. Go a little further south, you've got over near the ocean. You had Laguda Beach, San Clementa beautiful Dana points down there. Awesome. Yeah, that's a well, yeah, it's why of course you go to

college in a white collar place. But I'm from the mean streets of Irvine, California, and I lived on the north part of town, the bad part of town, the wrong side of the tracks. Where I lived, it's a very different a lot of tough track housing. When I was growing up there, I had a lot of strip malls I had to deal with. It was a big problem. I survived. The right Jason from Tampa right since is My question is if you had to be quarantined in the Fox studios because of this uh coronavirus, would you

be with? Who would you be? Without your these four options Eddie Cooper, Loop, Roberto or that snake gascon you know it would be me? No way, of course it would be no. No, You'd be annoying, and you don't know how to park. And I can't imagine your bedroom like your bathroom and bedroom habits. You'll probably fart all the time. He's disgusting. Uh So No, I'd probably go with Roberto because he'd cook, you know, cooking with Roberto that we know he does a segment dummy called Cooking

with Roberto, and he likes to cook. If we're quarantine here in the studio, we have no goddamn grill We have nothing in here except for you cooking the microwave. Mom, you're gonna reheat frozen food. You're not gonna cook anything, just nuke it. Just that's not cooking. Yeah, it is my dad. When my dad is cooking, he puts everything in the microwave. So what happens if Roberto starts drinking? Then oh, that would be a problem exactly. It would

have to be a dry quarantine. Yeah, but like Coop would just smoke weed, that would give me a headache. Eddie would want to talk about hockey or wouldn't talk at all. So I don't think that would be any fun, you know. Yeah, yeah, I'd go with Roberta. That would be my guy Jason and Rocky Mountain Virginia rights. And he says, hey, guys, did any of you ever make a game winning play in sports? A little league, high school, college, whatever?

And if you did, what was your celebration that particular day. Um, I guess I'll go first. Uh No. My claim to fame and youth sports was I hit one of the longest home runs in the history of Northwood Little League. That was at the time. I was told the same distance like Mark McGuire, hit. I had a metal bat, I was tremendously fat and all this stuff and made

contact on the sweet spot. And they estimate that that ball I hit when I was like thirteen years old, went four hundred and fifty feet and you know how they have the little league fence and all that, it was like twice the fence. It was insane. Um, but that's my claim defend. But it was not a game winning home run or anything like that. It was just

the most memorable youth sports moment I had. What about you, gas, Well, my senior year, UM, I played at a small Catholic school down San Pedro, but our field was not on campus. It was actually on the coast near Piso del Mars. So if you're familiar with like palas FTEs and rolling hills, it's west of the four oh five for those of you that in California, west of the four oh five. If you looked up Teran A Resort or Trump National

down in PV, that's kind of where my baseball diamond was. Anyways, a couple of days prior to our first round playoff game, my grandfather had died and he's a huge baseball guy. He's he's like you, uh see just raw with baseball, just talks about it all the time. Well, we're in a playoff game, but so is my sister. She was playing softball at the There's a driving range down in San Pedro, the l APD does their target practice set

and there's connected a softball field. So my dad, who was working at the time, was driving back and forth between our two games, which was about like ten miles apart. Anyways, we played a school from up here called Campbell Hall and I led the ball game off in the second inning with a solo home run. We bust the gates wide open. Ben it was seven and nothing into the seventh inning. High school ball ends in seven innings. Well, the opposing team came back off of a couple of

areas and they tied it seven. Seven into the into the bottom of the seventh, we were retired. So we go to extra innings, and at that point in the ball game, I was one for one of the ball game with a solo home run in two walks. I come up in the bottom of the eighth inning ONLM on deck and the guy ahead of me hits the shot off the center field wall, just misses hitting a home run, and I come up next, and they bring in a relief picture and supposedly this guy was their

their ace, like their closes or whatever. And my coach says, just look for something to hit on the ground and beat it out and and we'll try to get runners at the corners. First pitch, I saw Ben I hit the ship out of this ball at to dead center field, and how our field was was positioned, it goes over the cliff. So my ball went right into the Pacific Ocean.

It was wild. And as I'm rounding first base, just like the natural where he hits the light stand in and it blows up and almost there was a blow up. So as I'm rounding first base, I'm like sandly loud, I'm like, get out of here, get out of here, like talking ship. One of the guys on my team who had struck out in the previous at bat started talking ship to the picture. They collide at the mound

and there's a bench just clearing brawl. As I'm rounding second base, so I come around third, I touched home plate and I stood there because I didn't want to get into the brawl and get ejected. Right. Best part about this Ben was that there was an l a judge who was behind home plate and he videotaped everything. So when the game ended, the umpires wanted to throw a couple of our guys out and throw me out

for saying that I started the altercation. The umpires go to the judge and as soon as the judge goes the umpire is my dad comes in from the parking lot and he's like, what's going on? And the judge was like, your kid hit a home run off my kid, da da da da da. The umpires reviewed the tape, they called at a game winning home run. Ball game was over and that's how it ended. So my grandmother told me, she's like, I thought your grandfather carried that

ball out. It was pretty awesome. It was so, but it was fun. You sounded just like Al Bundy in the last few minutes here from back. One of us children of high school. One of us is really long witted for the majority of the time, and some of us are not. So I had to get in my airtime like I'm coming up for some air right now. So I turn it back over to you. Listen if

you want to come on Ben Mather's Show. Over the next month and do an entire hour of radio now, because that'll give Ralph an idea of coming in your funds. That's the last thing you need at this moment. Apocalypse, Ralph Irvin, I'll choose apocalypse. That is, uh, all right, we're doing grab bag. These are actual questions by actual

listeners like yourself. What else do we have here? Let's see this from Mike and Japan, He says, Will Commissioner Rob Manford finally bend over and give it to the extros? Uh no, no, now he doesn't have to. Now, you know, it's it's like, hey, you have the ultimate trump card, excused the coronavirus. I can't do anything because of the coronavirus. Everyone's gonna be using that as you gotta have a fall guy. I gotta have a fall guy. Let's see

who else do we have this? He and Joe in Mount Laurel, Pennsylvania says, Ben and David, your bravery is unmatched in sports talk radio history doing this podcast in the coronavirus pandemic. Well, thank you, Joe. I appreciate that. Very kind of you to say that. And we are risking our lives here. We are risking. You see that email they send out, Management sent out they are putting precautions in at our our facility there, our colleague Rob

Parker has been quarantined. Is that right? Yes? Not today when I walked it in the studio because I'd asked, you know, there's a lot of guys here that have wives and kids, and so I was curious because of the travel with a lot of our hosts on boats on flights, like, hey, is there any kind of precautionary measures that we're taking? And I found out Parker's quarantined. Well, he was on a boat for a week or whatever, and then he flew to the East coast, like he

flew up to like New York I think it was. Yeah, So on Lockdown, h yeah, And it's a no no in studio guests. It's gonna really hurt our shows. No no in studio guests. I guess that's unfortunate. John rights and he says, in this time of the coronavirus, should we replace the handshake with a the fish bump, be the elbow tap or see jazz hands? What is jazz hands? Jazz? Well, if you if you look up the game winning goal that Alec Martinis scored against the New York Rangers in

Game five of the Stanley Cup Final. Jazz hands like, he threw up his gloves and he started shaking his hands, like, okay, you shake your fingers, Kenny. That's not that's pretty cool. Do you know what I would do? Would air? I do the air high five. I do that with Roberto because I practice good hijia, I do the air high five. Why can't we just be like McGuire and Conseco backsh brothers. Yeah, bash brothers go for harm checks. That'd be good. That's

very masculine. You know we we we're big masculine people. A new in Orange Owensboro, Kentucky who regularly sends questions in I don't think he's missed a week. Uh. And he says, first and he's clearly been drinking here because he says, I want to say uh. He says this is for gascon. He says, I thought most of the Malamoshia find you very annoying. I like the energy, he says. Uh. He seems to enjoy your your stories, which tells me he's not a discerning customer. New it's a bad job

by you. Uh, he says. I have the question for you is what's it what's it like being the son of a cop, he says, And what does your family think of the coronavirus? Well, being a son of a cop early on was brutal because my dad he just like he was always stirring with me, always serious, and I always walked on eggshells. He just because my dad had the voice, the mustache and the eyes where he would just beat you down, like to this day, your

dad has like the ultimate police mustache. Yes, like Jeff Kent, Tom Selleck. My dad's like right there. So you should be able to grow that same musket. No, I can't. He's really he's got the skills, man, He's uh right, Ben. My senior year, we did I don't know if you guys did at your high school, but we did a formal in the fall and then homecoming as well, I mean prom in the spring. My best friend calling his mom. She let's just say she liked the party a little bit.

She was a flight attendant. She has had a lot of fun own a house like on the far side of Sampedro, like close to where Eddie lives. She lived in a cul de sac well, the night of our prom, we had a bunch of people that were getting together when school got out. My dad had gotten word of it that my buddy Collins mom was going to have a party there alcohol obviously, no parents or whatever. My dad rolled up in an undercover police car in the cul de Sac and had that entire blocks lights shut off,

like the street lights shut off. So I had friends that were rolling up to this house with packs of beer like six pack, twelve pack, twenty four pack, and my dad was sitting in the cul de Sac and just shaming these people and they had to pour all their drinks out and leave. I rolled up in a van with my friends and as soon as I saw the car said turned around and we went around. We went to another house party and like had fun the

entire night. So I got away with it, but I got you know, I got pages that night throughout the nights saying, hey, your dad sucked up our prom party. I was like, no, he funked up your prom party. He didn't sunk up mine, but yeah, they were probably pissed in your dad. What the fu? Yeah, yeah, I definitely. My dad was a cop, though my mom was a teacher, so you know I had it hard. Yeah. As far as the coronavirus, I don't think you're any different anybody.

I mean, I will tell you that my wife works at a police station and so and she comes home obviously and we're hanging out and stuff. So I'm thinking, like, if anybody at the precinct she works at, she's a nine one one operator. But if anyone gets the coronavirus, then then I get it. Yeah, right, She's gonna get it, and then I'll get it and then we're off to the races. Now, have you done any kind of countermeasures

at this time? I know you had that picture on Instagram with the toilet paper and paper towels, but have you done anything else like Still, I'm still going to the gym. My wife wishes I wouldn't go to the gym until this is all settled down, but I feel like it's good from my immune system, and I'm paranoid but losing, you know, getting weight. Well. To two quick things that I did for my sisters and for my

mom and dad was I bought um little packet. They're called drip drop, and it's powder which is based inly like a like an ivy pack um that's really good for rehydration. And then also bought some power beats uh that's good for your heart, your blood circulation and whatnot. So I bought a lot of the other health products that people should be getting that probably don't because they're too much, too busy stocking up on the toilet paper, you know. And again I'm I'm really I wish I

was more concerned. Maybe I should be. Maybe I'm gonna get the coronavirus because I'm not that concerned. Like, but I've read a lot of the facts. I haven't read the stories. I've read the facts and the facts unless they're complete bullshit, and maybe they are, you know, deep state conspiracy. There's a lot of people peddling panic and it reminds me to a degree, and maybe this will

be proven correct. All these people, these doomsday prophecies that people are spreading from the science community will be proven correct, and you know, this will wipe out the you know, general population, and this will be terrible and many of us are going to die and all that stuff, or it's going to be like back in year two thousand.

I remember, in the lead up to it was y two k and there were people respected people in the science community that we're getting on radio and television talking about how they you know, you better bunker down by the same thing, by water, by toilet paper, because everything's gonna shut down. Once we flipped from the year two thousand and uh, nothing fucking happened. Nothing happened. Now again, that's different. This is a pandemic. Um, so we'll see.

But but it's a pandemic. It's not an apocalypse. It shouldn't cause the markets to tank like this. But people, it's being fueled by social media. It's like dry brush and you throw some lighter fluid and lighting on fire. It's gonna it's gonna go pretty far. It's gonna go pretty far. See what else do we have about Kevin writes. He says, I moved to Norway. I can now listen to your entire show. Uh in the mornings. You're on

an Oslo, Norway in the morning, the capital. Look at that and I loved you on Radio Sports in New Zealand when he lived in New Zealand. He's from the US. He says he likes listening to the show. In the podcast A Slice of Home in a Crazy World, all Right, well, thank you, Kevin, that's cool. That's pretty neat. Like Mike from Cleveland rights in just heard a sketcher's commercial. When did Tony Romo become an NFL legend when he dropped the snap? Was that we become you're a dick? Uh?

I like, I like Romo, but anything for a commercial. Jordan and Seattle rights and says, Ben, what do you think of the state of sportsmanship? And you sports referees are in deep shortage due to the lack of sportsmanship in this country, is what he says. Yeah, you know, I I believe in showmanship in bravado when you get to the professional ranks. But yeah, when you're a kid, these are life lessons, right, You're supposed to follow certain guidelines.

The parents. Man, you go to these youth sporting it's a parents have just completely unhinged. Maybe every call, every officials out to get him and all that. I I I was very briefly in a y s o referee because I wanted the uniform and uh and I was a soccer referee when I was like a teenager. You could do it, and it was at the bocle. I think I'd be a pretty good umpire, though I think I'd be pretty I'd be like the old umpire died

years ago. Durwood Meryll, great turning point. I when I was a kid, I used to go to Angel games all the time at liut To Orange County, and I would sneak down in like the seventh inning, right behind the dugouts, and Drwood Meryll, I am convinced, pointed at me like seven times in a row. He like stared at me and point strike. It's pretty good. And and here I am, all these years later, I still have this very vivid memory of of that. So all right,

what do email do you have? Go ahead? What do I? God? I got you said you had some How about the high how about the highway patrol guy that loves the show, he likes me, doesn't like you. That's your That's our first c HP, right, Yes, that's our first c HP. Because we were talking about what we're talking about last week. I told you why I need a c HP guy to vouch for me because I get like pulled over,

you know, because like this with your wife. Because your wife has the get out of Yeah she's got get out of jail free. But I need like a good c HP guy to help me out, and I asked him. I think I jokingly said, hey, maybe you can send me a business card or something like that. But I don't think you responded. Our good friend, more so mine than yours. But I'm a pilot, you got you have been all over this guy. Let let it go. We've been we've been talking, we've been communicating. I think this

is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. You gotta be kidding me. Why are you being frustrated because you're it's obvious what you're doing. What am I doing? You're like, you know, I've I've known you. You're making a move out of certain women have this in their playbook. You're an opportunity. You know, You're the woman that goes in the bar and scans the room and tries to determine who's got the most power or influence. And That's where I'm gonna go. So I'm trying to do this with

the pilot. You're saying, is it a coincidence, guest, that since you started flirting with the pilot that the travel industry has gone in the shiitter. No, it's it's not that right. I mean, there are these things unrelated. Are these events unrelated or are they related the curse of gascon Uh. You know, for years, for the last fifty years, if you had friend a friend that was a pirate pilot, you've been pretty good shape. You've been pretty good shape.

Now they're canceling all kinds of flights. No one wants to travel anywhere. They're they're traveling to Petree dishes and uh. And now now you've become friends with the pilot. I just think, logerhead, I'm I'm bonding, That's what I'm doing. Anyways, he was reverting back to our our conversation last week about baseball cards and collect a bulls, and he wanted to know what he should do because he has a box of cards that includes like Cecil Fielder, Ben McDonald,

the Ricky Jordan's. Uh. But he has all these cards and he has nothing to do with him now because the value has decreased so much on him. What do you think he should do with him? All Right, So I'm in the same position. I'm I believe around the same age as I'm a pilot. So I've lived the same life. I invested in Ken Griffe Jr. Upper Deck rookie cards. I invested in Billy Ripkin fuck face on the end of the bat cards I had. All of those had the reverse negative Dale Murphy card that was

worth a lot of money. And so I I have at my my my dad's house. My dad complains all the time, you got all these baseball cards, you want them. I'll drive him to your house, you know. And I'm like, no, no, we'll just leave him there. We'll just leave him there. Um, but you gotta go through. There's probably some stuff that's worth money, Like I have. The most valuable cards I have are the Michael Jordan's second year card, which I don't know how much it's worth now. It was worth

a lot of money. Last I checked, No, basketball cards were not very popular at all. Um. I don't think it was upper deck it was I had. I had like a Bill Walton rookie card, and uh yeah, that's outside a few of them. But that was just dumb luck. Like I just bought a couple of boxes of basketball cards and they weren't really popular. Baseball cards were popular. Basketball cards weren't popular. Football cards weren't really popular. Was only baseball it was popular. But as far as what

you should do with it. I would go through and try to figure out if there anything is worth something. I bet you that you have something's worth some money. Sell that and then the rest of it. You can dig a hole in your backyard with a shovel, put it all in the hole in like a time capsule, and then cover the dirt and then uh say your final prayers. Put it in a will. That's what you should do. Well, you can make if you really want

to give it away. You can go to like a card show and say hey, I got this, or try putting on an eBay and say, you know, for two bucks, i'll'll be an entire card collection. You know, something like that. Somebody might buy it. Not bad. How about this Jay Scoop, He has a question for both of us. Great j Scoop, winner of the back to back Talent show from Seattle, Washington, Great City Seattle. I love Seattle. Good dude, he says, I'm slowly approaching the release of my band's debut album

and a road tour. It's probably gonna be canceled, but I realized that our band name kind of sucks. At least it's not good enough. Right now, is the best time to make a change before too long. Needs something catchy but not dumb and inspires a fun logo and T shirt designs. If you had to pick a band name, what would it be. I'll go first and I'll see Emerald Hayes would be a good Emerald Hayes. I'm sure there's a band already named Emerald has. I don't know.

Maybe I don't know. I'm not big enough. I don't know. I'll have to look that up. You have to look that up. Well, he needs something that has to do with muscle, don't you. I mean you want to show that you're strong and powerful. You know what I mean? Day Is it really a strong name? Or well, I'm okay, Emerald Hands. That's a cannabis company. Uh, well, it would be a good band name. I was trying to think here, Mortal Kombat. How about Mortal Kombat the bad with the band?

Would that work? We're gonna do with the can instead of a see Or how about Crack Commandos? Would that be good? Like the eight Team back into Day the Crack Commando. You're defecating on the idea of giving Jay Scoop's band a name, But no, I'm I want to

see Jay Scoop do very well. I would be No, I would be so happy if Jay Scoop moved up to like ruse F level and became like that band just took off and became massively big and and then I could brag that my friends that I knew Jay Scoop before he became this almighty, all powerful music mogul opportunitists. That would be be great. Well, no, I don't. That's not like Russef does anything for me, you know what I mean, nothing really going on. He's a fan of

the show and he still listens. He's a good human being because he likes the Clippers, you know, and all that band. Don't they have a band name Generators on the internet. Don't they have that? Probably? Don't be lazy. You were just boasting about your improv skills like two days ago, and all of a sudden you have nothing in the time. How about how about how about a band called status Quo? Would that be good? No, you don't like status Quo? That doesn't work, that's not lame.

How about Bridge to Nowhere? That'd be good. Right, Bridge to Nowhere that's actually pretty good. That's not bad. Bridge to nowhere. You know it's I don't know. You could do that. You could do um. I don't know what's that political to pork barrel pork barrel spending? How about just pork barrel spending? Is your name of your band? Man? I don't know. How about white whale? No? No, two. People search for the white whale the entire lives. They

never see the white whale. Yeah, they might think it's discrimination against other kind of whales or fat people maybe, and calling people fat uninclusive term. How about law of karma as a name of a band? Would that be good? Law of karma? I got cause and effect that? No, No, you don't like cause and effect. I like your original one better? All right? Anything else you got there, buddy? Any other band names you want to come up with here? No? No,

I don't think I was looking at emails. Terry sent to an email to me, just you know, patting me on the back. I thought it was a good job by him. Terry's get the coronavirus. Shut up? He must. Are you getting mad that some of your listeners are

actually applauding me? Well, they say there's a certain percentage of society that just completely gets brainwashed by anything, and so you're getting those people, those very few people that are not discerning customers of audio content, and they're falling for you. I am I am the I'm Vegas here, you're the you're the joke public, and I'm Vegas. That's right. I am the man of the people. You are correct, You're finally getting it here. I am the working class

people's talk shows. You got the sharps that come my way, and you get the you get the lively chalk that goes your way. So I'll go back to the coronavirus briefly. So the business I work in sports radio. I've been texting some friends of mine and we were trying to determine, like, what's gonna happen next in our business because we're worried

about ourselves. Do the ratings go up? Do we have more people listing in the next month, even though there's no sports going on because of a curiosity, be boredom and you need something to do to entertain yourself. I mean, is that possibly? Or are we just talking to ourselves here? Are we? You know, I'd be better off going out and talking into a garden hose. More people would hear me. Every show is different. But like your show is that dynamic show where you get other ones are straight like

talk at you radio. So I think every show is different because you listen to a lot across the United States. There's certain shows and hosts that only talk at you. Others are more of like a morning style, free flowing type of environment. Yours doesn't like that. Yeah, and as long as commerce continues, Like I'm assuming that the truck drivers are a lot of truck drivers that drive around having to deliver toilet paper at the stores and ship like that. So they have to be up driving all

night and all that. So we got them. That's a captive audience. Yeah. The guys in prison, they can't go anywhere. Law enforcement enforcement still has to work, yeah, public servants, firefighter, um, government officials. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, So I think, well, I think we'll be okay. And uh, the other thing that it's it's really goes back to what we were talking about earlier with human nature. UM. I know from from the past scandal, death pandemic that it's human nature at

a primal level. You actually listen more people want to hear, they want to consume this communal experience, and since you can't actually get together in public in a lot of these places where the coronavirus is raged on, it's a way to get everyone together without actually touching each other and being in the same room and listen to the radio, which is kind of cool. Yeah, you know what I called the first round the Big West Conference Tournament on

Tuesday night inside the Pyramid and long Beach. My condolences, humble Brad gascon but Ben, it was an empty gym. And the best part was is my radio call actually bled into the ESPN calls. It's pretty awesome. That is good. Yeah.

I remember when the White Sox played the Orioles five years ago and they had no fans and the broadcasters were they were they started talking in a golf voice because they realized the players on the field could hear everything they were saying from the press box because there's no there was no crowd noise to drown out what the broadcasters are saying. Yeah, that's pretty good. It's pretty wild, man.

We have some study this. You want a little study this real you your former executive producer, Robert Gara has has just told me to get the funk out of here. Is that right? Yeah? Fuck him. Let's do study this all right. Let's see here. What what percentage of workers are too intimidated to tell their boss about problems? I'd say, I'd say hi, I'd probably not that high, but high sixty of employees say they are too intimidate to tell their boss about problems. I would say I'm in that category,

but not because I'm intimidated by my boss. My bosses are pretty cool. But I've experienced in my professional career that out of sight, out of mind is not a bad thing. That once you get on the radar of your boss, then they start snooping around. You know what I mean. You know, they don't really think much about the overnight show. But if I start saying, hey, I got a problem with you know so and so, then they start snooping around and it creates other problems. You

know what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean it's part of the reason why you brought me on during the summer of night to be your producer, because you need some helps. So I appreciate that I felt bad for you. Toss a dog a bone, you don't feel what percentage of Americans claim they watch television with their pet. Fuck um women with cats, I'd say, I don't know. Yeah, all right, it's forty six percent. This is bullshit. Pets don't watch television,

they all um. I have my my dog Bella, Bye bye Carbella m When we're watching TV at the house, and Bella will be in the room hanging out bellows like staring at us, waiting us for for us to eat something and drop food, not staring at the TV. So I guess technically in the room but not really watching the the TV. Alright. New studies reveals how many years does it take to reach best friends status? Two? No, you're wrong, four years? Who study says four years you

become a best friend. So that means you're not anywhere. You cannot be my best friend. Cannot be my best friend. Uh, let's see here. A new study shows a veanism is up by three in the US. Nine point seven million Americans now claim to be plant based if they watch superci to. I might believe that, yeah, but that doesn't mean you're healthy. That's like another like my dad eats vegetarian burgers all the time, and it's filled with ship filled with chemicals. You can put the vegetarian burgers. You

put that MSG in their boom. You're good, right, sprinkle that on everything. I get a dash of MSG with my fries, please, Yeah, exactly all right. New survey revealed what percentage of Americans claim they have thrown out their partners stuff after a heated argument. Oh man, um, you know, I'll go low with this. I'll go like so you think, yes, all right, it is low, but it's it's a little lower than that. That's a real douchebag move to throw

somebody's stuff out. I mean, that's that's psychotic. Yes, yeah, you've never done that, have you. No? I've kept some stuff too, but little souvenirs, trinkets. Yeah, I got you, all right. A new survey says half of all Americans would rather pay somebody to do this for them instead of doing it themselves. Clean their house, no laundrey, no one more. Guess, wash their car? Yes, how about that gas car? Wash their car? Yeah. I don't mind watching

my car. I just feel like the process takes too long. We should expedite the process of washing the car because I like to do it right. You know, I want to watch the inside the outside. I'm a big watch the inside guy. All right, last study this and it's about art. Check this out. According to new research, in twenty three million American adults took an art class or art lessons. That is more than the total number of people that attended an NFL game that year. So the

art community is braggadocious here, guesscon that art is. I would like to think that art is bigger than the NFL. Right is because because the art classes are year round, art lessons are year around. The NFL plays in the only one game a week, and they play only part of the year, of course, and of course now they might not play at all. Yeah. XFL announced that they canceled their suspended their season too. So XFL, NHL, NBA,

Major League Baseball, college athletics. Can I get a raise to my bosses because I I I still got four hours whether they're playing or not. You know, maybe I should only do two hours. You just do two hours. The best thing with this pandemic going on right now, Ben, is all you got is me. That's the best thing about it. I got nothing. I got nothing. Now you you got your you get your trusty sidekick, you got that pistol, you got that Uh that was snapper in

your corner. So you're a lot of water gun. That is what I get. You're a water gun? What you are? What's that? I said? Bullshit? You do? Yeah, you know what you are. You're like going to combat on one side has hand grenades and my side has bean bags. You're a bean bag, is what you are. You know. I'm like the I'm like white Earb's peacemaker. That's exactly what I am. Like a little court from Colt forty five action for you. Yeah, anyways, all right, we'll put

the baby to bed. Yes, yes, all right, listen, be safe. We gotta be followed on Instagram, Twitter, Yeah, yeah, follow me on Instagram, Ben Maller on Fox, on in Instagram. I need to get my followers up. Ben Mallard on Fox. On Instagram, uh, and on Twitter Ben Maller. And on Facebook It's Ben Maller Show. Yes. So I've got three different names for each platform, which is really not what you're supposed to do. I just realized that. I just

realized that every platform has a different name. It's crazy, all right, And you're on their gag on right. The gag on Instagram is at Dave Gascont gag on Twitter is at David J. Gascon Uh. And I don't use Facebook because I'm not a nerd. So yeah, it's you know, I don't know. You don't want to relate to your your old grandpa, grandma, uncle's aunts, cousins. I actually used the telephone. I texted him, I call him. I don't use the telephone. You could get the coronavirus using your phone.

All right, listen, have a great weekend. Get be safe boy. If you really wanna, you want to tune into a car wreck, listen to some sports radio over the next couple of weeks. It is going to be amazing. I am going to go deep in my bagg of tricks. Like I said earlier, I'm gonna do every hack thing to fill time you can possibly want. But anyway, have good weeken. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks,