The Fifth Hour: A Maze of Inflation

welcome into another Pipe and Hot. Addition to the Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard and Danny g Radio because clearly the radio show not enough content bonus content here and it is all free. We're not charging for any of this. No, no, there's no cash that's required here and Danny the Saturday

Pot Cast the Life of Mallard and Danny. Before we get into this, though, I would like to address the great game show controversy that took place on the Overnight Show this week and one of the most despicable things that I have witnessed in my time in radio, Eddie Garcia conspiring with Justin Cooper and Justin in Cincinnati to Justin's and and Eddie to throw a game. Now you're laughing, Danny, but I'm laughing because this explains why my timeline got

lit up a couple of days ago. Well, yeah, and Mallard's mounting of money, which is a staple of the show, and Eddie knowing that he could not win the game legitimately, he deputized Justin and Cincinnati's I said on the radio show The Manchurian candidate Justin and Cincinnati who as you know, Danny, I mean justin Love. He he loves listening to the radio station Fox Sports Radio, and he has an obsession

for weed and sports tribute. Uh. He's very good at apparently smoking copious amounts of weed and also nose ridiculous sports tributes like rain Man when it comes to sports tribute, Right, you'd agree with me on those are two life goals for all of us. Yes, So anyway, the point of this is we're playing the game. Justin ends up picking

me as the the partner. And there are other investigators in the Mallard militia that are claiming that this was all set up, that this was all a ruse, and it was all set up, and and the moment I picked Justin, the plan went to orbit. That that was the the ghost sign um, and I'm not sure about all that. I don't know how deep this is. All I know is it played down the radio. And the most amazing thing about this is Eddie gave the sign, Danny, you know what to do? Did he bang on a

trash can? No, he said it. He said it. He said it. He didn't didn't dance around, he didn't juggle around or anything like that. He said you know what to do as kind of uh sorry a wink wink to Justin In in Cincinnati. And and Justin, who's usually so so good, he just completely felful. He took the bait and so he got all upset because I banned him for six months from the game shows, and I

think that's completely reasonable. I should have banned him for life from the show, like real talk, but I chose not to do that, so I gave him a break. Now, I didn't get to hear the segment. So how many did he miss? How many? How do you know he threw it? Well because of the he was stalling and delaying. He was stalling, and he was a savoteur. It was absolutely ridiculous. And and the fact that there are some unethical people that listen to the show. That thought that

was entertaining. Uh, these game shows are very serious. You've been on the show, Danny, you've played the game shows. You know that we take these game shows very seriously. People think we're goofing around and this is all stick. It ain't stick. Okay, these things are very important. This is competition, this is athletic competition, competition of the mind, all of that. It's a journey on these game shows. And so I just wanted to get that off my chest.

I just wanted to start with that. Okay, But we have Rat in a Maze, Picasso of Goats, Tough, tragic burn, this summer down, not necessarily in that order, Backscratcher as well, and I thought we'd start with this, So the Rat in the Maze. I had a meeting the other day during the week, uh business meeting in Burbank, as one of our callers like to say, or we call a

Burbank right near Warner Brothers. So I was meeting with some of the big shots that they're not able to talk about what happened in that meeting here, not yet. Hopefully soon we'll be able to discuss that share some more information. So I got up very early. Is being replaced, Yes, the new voice of the Dodgers, unless that's not the case. So I got up early. I spent ninety minutes in

gridlock traffic at two in the afternoon. Now, I thought, two in the afternoon, that's midday people are working, that's not rush hour traffic. Ninety minutes at two o'clock in the afternoon, So that was ridiculous. And all over the highways and byways of southern California to get to this meeting. Now, I had not been to this Burbank compounds since I can't believe it's been that long, but it had been that. I checked my my notes and it had been six

years since I had been there. Uh. And that's that's the I heart l A cluster. This is where the big l A stay. I Kiss FM, which big FM station kf I AM five seventy at the home of the Dodgers. These are the big stations in l A and others. There's whole bunch of FM stations other than Kiss FM. So I go to my meeting. Now, I'm not sure how long the meeting's gonna last. I have a lotted thirty minutes of time Danny for this meeting.

I figured that's a fair amount. Thirty minutes, ten minute warm up, back, ten minute meeting, the meeting, and then ten minutes to wind up. Are these executives are salespeople? Uh? No, it was. It was a mishmash. It was. It was some big shots, some heavy hitters, and so hand the god Danny. By the time the meeting had ended, it was almost two hours. So I had only a lot of thirty minutes of time. And so what did you

do a monologue for everybody? Oh? God no, And I want to tell you I had the patience of a saint to sit through. So I sat there and I, you know whatever. It was fine, and I enjoyed some I like talking shop you know that day, and I like talking radio and stuff. So we had a good conversation. But two hours is a long time, and so that completely messed up my entire schedule. And I planned to have this nice lunch. I used to work in Burbank

and there's a a park into Luca Lake. So because of the meeting going so long, my lunch plans were completely bumped. Because I have a certain amount of time, I'm i'd like to micro manage the overnight show, so I have to prepare. I have a certain amount of time. Instead of spending a couple of minutes eating lunch in a park, I spent another thirty minutes going from Burbank to Sherman Oaks. So because I got caught in rush hour, now I'm two hours in traffic and I haven't really done.

But I had a meeting that was so I make the decision on the fly. Here da, this is very important. So I make the decision on the fly. I'm like, I still need to eat something because I need to break my fast and then start my neck fast. So I had some food that my wife had had been kind enough to prepare for me. So I I then decided that I would just go to the Sherman Oaks facility and I would eat my meal in my car. So I scarfed down a Pastronomy sandwich on the fourth

floor of the parking garage. This is the life of a radio star day. This is the life of a radio start by myself in a car on a hot day in Sherman Oaks, eating a Pastronomy sandwich and having some chips. And now I did notice and I don't see this at night. When I come in, there a lot of like hippie looking people doing hot yoga. Oh yeah, there was a lot of that. And some of them look swarthy, some of them look slim, some of them

look lizard like. Yeah, the planning bed. Yeah, I noticed there were a lot of very thin people that I thought, instead of going here, they should probably eating the pastronomy sandwich that I'm eating. Uh but whatever. And then there are a couple of good looking people a couple of really ugly people like, you know whatever, it's a it's a mix. You go to a hot yoga thing. I have no interesting have you ever done hot yoga? I've

never been to regular yoga. Now I know some of the yoga moves because they're funny, like the double down dog or whatever that is. Uh so that those those things are funny. But so anyway, I'm like, okay, I've eaten my lunch. Now I've started my next fast. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna prepare for the show. And I was like, I don't want to be bothered. If I go to the first floor, I'm gonna be bothered. And people are nice, they want to talk to me, so I'm like, I

don't want. I don't want. So I said, Okay, I'm thinking in my head like there's been a lot of movement in the Premiere Networks facility because of there's a move that's gonna happen, it's gonna take a long time because of wiring and on um. So, so anyway, I'm like, okay, I think we have studios on one of the floors. Where where And actually parked next to the George nor So.

I knew that he had. He was there the host of Coast to Coast and so I was like, all right, you don't want to do I'm gonna hide out at the Premier Network studio. And so how did that go? So I meagined, I parked near George Nory. So I get through the courtyard through the big glass doors. I go by the security guard, which I know because that

used to be the overnight guy. He's now earlier on and so we're friends, me and and and there's great sec Yeah, the comic book guy, he's doing the earlier shift, and so you know, he waved me in and we were we were talking and uh we both we exchanged niceties. He said, you look great. And I said, well, you look great, you know that kind of thing, very polite, and so I keep walking doing my thing. I walked to the elevator, I get up. I go to the right.

I want to name the floor, but I go to the floor where the studios and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna go in Danny to one of these empty offices and I'm gonna use the WiFi and I'll watching I watched the Yankee Mets game and on my laptop, and I'll do the So I get out of the elevator on the floor and I go over to where I have normally gone for a long time, and I

go by the bathrooms. I opened the door, I go through there on the left side, there's like a little kitchen at where there's like a vending machine and a couple of tables and some plastic wear and stuff like that. So I'm like, okay, that's there. And then I keep going straight and there's caution tape like a crime scene, and I'm like, who died? What happened? Um? And I look and I kind of peeked through the caution tape and I see a bunch of empty rooms. But I

can't go by it's cautioned. So I'm like, okay, they must be doing some construction. So then I'm like, I'm gonna go to the other side of the building and I'm gonna go through the other side of the building, and then I'm gonna find where I need to go. So I go through the other side of the building and I you know, door opens, whatever, and I am wandering around. Now at this point, I am a rat in the maze. I'm wandering. I'm wandering, and it's you know how you've been somewhere and you go back and

you don't recognize a lot of it. You're like, what happened? I wasn't here that long ago. It reminded me of the story of going to that mall on the Nevada a California border where it was, Yeah, it was it was that I got that vibe. It was very weird and and so anyway, I failed. I struck out up. I couldn't find a single empty They got rid of the all of the office. There were a few studios, and I was gonna sit in the guest studio, but then that's right near George Norri's office, and I didn't

want to bother George. So I thought that would be rude. I wouldn't want someone coming in here and bother me and so so I didn't do that. So I did the walk of shame, Danny. I had to go back down to the the ground floor there and uh and sit in the old Casey Caseum studio, which is the podcast studio, and I took the defeat. I went back to the ground floor abode and hit out and put the blinders up and all that, and surprisingly not many people even noticed I was there, so that was good.

There weren't many people there. A lot of the guys were doing the show from home, so I didn't have to I did run into my Karmit I talked to Harmon for a little bit. But it was a crazy busy night and then I did the show after spending all day there and all night. Did the show and then I had to do some other stuff and it was it was a hot mess. I know the floor you're talking about what happened to the million dollar renovation they had done up there with all the blue waiting

rooms and lobbies. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Danny, because you'll be happy to know that some other business will have that office space at some point in time, but it is no longer part of the company's office space. The hundreds of thousands of dollars that they spent to renovate that, all the monitors, all the bells and whistles, all of that, and just just great, just absolutely great.

Basically an entire floor of Ryan Seacrest's dressing rooms. You're right, it was a lot of Hey, this guy is a great talk show host. That guy's a great talk shows and somehow they forgot to put my photo up in there, or several other people, but I did see, uh, you know a lot of the big names. They were bragging about that. But they've battened down the hatches preparing for the big move, so they're they're all excited about that. So that was the rat in the maze. Now the uh,

the Picasso of goats real quick. So the Mallard Peluza big success. We We did have some controversy in that. Surfer Todd, the comedian, filed a formal complaint claiming that there was some funny business that had taken place. We can't do anything on this show without some kind of nonsense so Todd was all upset. He claimed election fraud. He said that Jay Scoop and just Josh had bought Twitter votes in this dopey pole and he was very upset.

He claimed that they picked up hundreds of votes in a very short amount of time, both denying the charge. We have not gone further with the investigation, but Surfer Todd was perplexed, puzzled and pissed. He was on the war path. He was not happy. But the story for me has a happy because the Mallard Paluza Dan he has a purveyor of fine art. You've been to the Mallard Mansion, not the new one, but the old one,

and I was able to add to my collection. The Mallard Mansion is a modern day louve of fine art. This latest piece a exclusive piece compliments of the Goatman, robbed the Goatman from Iowa Goat who I've dubbed him the Picasso of goats. What what? What a wonderful artist. He put together an unofficial poster of the Mallard Palooza. I think stent you a painting of Lebron James. Oh God, no, no, but but Robbie he did this little poster, you know,

because any good music concert needs a poster. You need t shirts, you need call He made a poster and it was pretty cool. And I've shown my wife and she saw that's great. We should put that up, you know. Oh that's a good idea because we have some other things the Mad Clown made years ago that has a bunch of the characters of that era in the show on there. And I always love these unique things. Anyway, So Mallard Mallarpaluza poster rob I. I sent him a message.

He said, yeah, absolutely, So he sent me the big file and at some point I'm not sure when we will have the Mallard Palooza poster will be added, and uh, it's pretty cool. I'm excited, but I have not gotten it yet, but I will. I'm sure keep you posted when that that great day arrives and it lands at my doorstep. Meanwhile, it's summertime in the city. But is

it time to burn this summer down? Danny g This has been a long week and the reason why, and you can relate to this bend you've talked about the catalytic converter crisis that you've had on your hands. Yes, still don't have it. Yeah, I knew you didn't have it yet because I've been dealing with auto mechanics the past week. Man, I'm in your club right now, and

it's not a good club to be in. I'll take you back to the very first day of summer school, and my first class started at ninety and I saw in the schedule that parent drop off was at eight forty. So I'm thinking, you know, to avoid that rush of cars, I should get there like nine. Give me some time to set the classroom up a little bit and not

get there when everybody's dropping their kids off. Problem. I get there and most of the parents had been running late, probably because it was the first day of summer school for them, trouble getting their kid into the car on time, and they were just all running late in general. The other thing I didn't know. I hadn't been on this campus yet. It is up a hill on which wouldn't be an issue except I drive a stick shift. Blank my blank and blank you Now why do you drive

a stick shift? Do you love the stick shift? Is that how you learned how to drive? Is it? What? What? What is the stick shift? There? I don't I don't know how to drive a stick shift. It's something that I've learned to love over the past few years. This is the first stick shift that I've had now. When I was working on OutKick the coverage, it was perfect talk.

I had a clear race track to Sherman Oaks and then after post production there was some light morning traffic, but I still was able to move without a lot of bumper to bumper. It wasn't until my life recently that I was sitting in Saturday bumper to bumper l A traffic to get to the studios, the same thing for Sunday. And explain for those that don't understikes I I do they still make stick shifts? Is that still

a thing? It's usually sports cars, okay, And explain for those that have never driven a stick shift, like, like, why is it harder in traffic? You're stopped, then you have to get your car back into first, back into second, back in the third. So basically you are down shifting and shifting back up constantly. So it's a lot of leg movement, it's a lot of our movement. You you come to a stop and you have to start all over again, whereas if you are gliding with your stick shift.

You don't have to ride your clutch, so it's bad and bumper to bumper traffic because you are stepping on your clutch too often. So I get to that first day of summer school. Now, when I get around that bend and I start going up the hill, I see brake lights and I'm like, oh, step on my brake, pull up my emergency brake, which is the trick when

you have a stick shift. And I looked behind me immediately because I'm like, I better you turn and get out of here, because I know from a few years ago being stuck at Dodger Stadium on the hill there, that this is no good for the clutch. I look back and there's already three parents behind me. So I am trapped in this line going up this steep hill. Don't panic, but I know it's bad. So I did the trick where you try to catch the gear and then release your break and you move forward. The problem

is this line is putting, it's barely going up. So I make the executive decision screw this. I'm gonna drive against head on traffic, and if any parent is driving down the hill, oh well that's better. Than having to put a new clutch into my sports car. I get up the hill. The security guard at the gate of the school is looking at me like I'm nuts. Explained to him, I'm your new science teacher. Sorry, but I'm driving a stick shift. I couldn't fit in that line.

And he's like, oh my god. He's like, I smell you're burning clutch. I could smell it as well when I rolled my window down, and I was like, oh boy, this is not good. I've only smelled this one other time, and it was at Dodger Stadium a few years ago. So I parked my car. It reeks of a burned clutch, praying at this point like please don't let it be serious,

Please don't let it be bad. It smelled like this for a couple of days, to the point where I kept it parked and I had my Tenderoni dropped me off on the second and third day of summer school. So now fast forward, I am driving, and of course, of all things been I'm driving to pet Boys to get two new front tires installed. Finally, I'm caught up on bills. Been working my ass off, I've been needing two front tires, so I got my appointment. I'm on

my way there. First into second revving, not going into gear, second to third revving, not going into gear, slipping, The clutch is giving out, and it is all compliments of that hill. On the first day of summer school. If I get it to the shop, the guy tells me, oh, yeah, yeah, you better go to Leon's Transmission. This is not good now, Ben, Normally, back in the day, you could get your clutch fixed. Maybe shipping stalking issues right now something you're well aware of. Yeah,

what do you think that costs now? She said? Normally it's like in the past when things were cheaper. I'm gonna say it's closer. You're under three thousand. Maybe if the flywheel was okay, but if you got to replace the flywheel in the parts and the labor, don't forget the labor now. Yeah? Yeah? Did you do what I did and what I've been trying to do here over the last to go on the internet and try to

find the part for cheaper damn? Right? I did. Uh. Still still in the process of doing that right now. But now this shop and they had some good references coming from Pep Boys and Yelp. I wanted to think that they were being honest with me. They called around, they got the price in the parts from the dealership, They got parts and prices from some independent shops in my area. Four thousand dollars, oh my god, the high end from the dealership. So four thousands the minimum. So

my car is just under forty thou miles. I'm early on this, and you know why, because I burned it out on that hill. It should last you for longer than four years. Coming to terms with the fact that I've basically just worked this summer school for pro bono. Oh yeah, because the money that you're yeah, yeah, because the money I are is the money that it's gonna cost to put the new clutch in. So I've just kind of kept a positive attitude first day I found

out about it, though I'm not gonna lie. Said some some words. I probably shouldn't have yelled out loud, probably kicked a few things around the garage. I did some shadow boxing. Um, there's nothing you can do because you're not a mechanic and know any mechanics. So it's like, and even if you know a mechanic, are they going to be able to pull that off? It's probably a very complex Yeah. Now, the family does have one auto mechanic friend in the San Fernando Valley, and I was

able to get ahold of him. He's busy right now. As soon as he's not busy, I'm gonna bring the car to him, So I'm gonna go that route and see if he can help. But yeah, man, when you have issues and you need an auto mechanic, it's one of those deals where it's just as serious as needing

a surgeon. Well, for sure, it's like, you know all those jobs is that people kind of pooh pooh, but they're so important, like auto mechanic, tow truck driver, When my car broke down, you're desperate for aiver to help you. Um all, like plumber. You have a pipe that bursts and you need a plumber. All of those things are so so valuable. But yet you know, oftentimes you're like, who cares about that? But those are very important things.

I'm right there with you. Yeah, our cars are gonna be parked next to each other with car covers on both of them. We have the tub Tragic story. So the Life of Mallard podcast, we made a little upgrade. At least we thought was an upgrade at the Mallard mansion. And I've been channeling lately my inner sports sorceress Andrea

and I have. I've turned to soothing baths, you know, taking the bath after a long week with ebs and salt, and I've heard her talk about is my wife actually like, yah, you should do this, it will help calm you, your body down and all that. She had recommended it. So last week, now we have a bathtub. I I think I used the thing like twice up until like a week ago, but now I've decided I want to use it all the time. So so we have this thing, and my wife's like, oh, we're gonna upgrade it. She

decided to get a tub tray. You might think, well, why would you bring this up? Who cares? You got a tub tray. It's the most basic thing that's not something to talk about on a podcast. But wait till you hear the rest of the story. So she gets all you know, she's fired up. Look at this thing. It's gonna be great. You're gonna love the You're gonna take a bath every day. I'm like, yeah, it looks pretty good. Whatever. So I first bath, I take hand to God. Here, I'm taking the bath. I put the

tray up. Everything's going fine, everything's going great. I'm like, oh, this is pretty good. I've got my phone there. It's this nice black tray and you put your phone or your tablet on there and you can lay back and enjoy a bubble bath and then just watch your phone or whatever play on your phone. Whatever. My So the

bath ends not not eventful at all. Um. So then I'm getting out of the bathtub, and as I'm getting out of the bathtub, there was a little bit of a misstep and the tray for the the tub falls into the bathtub. So I'm like, oh, what's the big deal. Okay,

I'll just pick it up. But somehow in the process of it falling and it's not it didn't fall very far far at all, and all this Danny, there are now black stains all over the white tub, and I'm like, wow, these are probably just scrub off, and so I grabbed some towels and starts scrubbing. They don't come on the yeah, the inside of the tub. When I got out of the tub, the thing fell down and not only did scratch it to put the cherry on top of the

poop Sunday. It also stained it because it is one of these things you bought off Amazon that was made in China, and I guess they did not anticipate the degree of heat that would be in a bathtub and would melt the black paint that was it's like melted black plastic tar. Oh, it was a nightmare. It's still a nightmare. And so we pulled out the magic eraser. My wife's scrubbing, she's like originally she was like, oh, it's no big deal. Whatever. It was a big deal, Danny.

And this has been a fair amount when when the home was renovated and all this stuff, we spent a fair amount. And uh, you know, those bathtubs are not are not inexpensive. So where you need that infamous l a cleaner that we've talked about. It's a good idea. It's so toxic it can clean anything. Yes, you will lose days of your life possibly, but that's a hell

of a product. Diet we gotta get out on backscratchers. Oh, we always say every week, if you send us a nice review on the Apple podcast page, give us a nice You can give us five stars if you want and do whatever you want five stars would be great. Uh, and then we'll read the review on the show. It's you scratch our back, We'll scratch your back, well, Danny. This week we have reached a new milestone, a dead end, yes, not not one. We pitched a shutout this week on

the Apple podcast page, which is disheartening. You know what, I'll take some solace in this though. Ben got a nice message from our boss this past week. It seems as if he has read through some of those reviews and he was very, very happy. So you always joke about how our management loves those Apple podcast reviews, Well they read through them this past week. Oh that's a big, big shout out, big thank you to everybody that's sent

one end. Well, absolutely, and don't forget about that. And we got to turn the audience over, right, we've you've already done it, that's great. But if you haven't done it yet, you know, just just take a couple of minutes. And I know it's a pain in the ass. My ass feels so good right now. It's the podcast revolution. We gotta get out of here. On that. We've got the mail bag on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, anything going on in your world. You're on Saturday. You want to promote Danny. Yeah,

well I'm gonna be taking an uber. It sounds like the Sherman Oaks, the Jeff Schwartz and the man the main man from the Loose Cannons back in the days compartment. Are you you mentioned the bike thing? Is that apart? How many miles would that be on a bike? Yeah, that would be about nineteen miles on the bike one way around on the freeway, on the freeway if you had, if you had an electric bike, but even that would

be pushing there. You can't ride any bike on the freeway. Unfortunately, my TINDERRONI will will drop me off there at Sherman Oaks and then after Hartman and Schwartz it will be Brian No and E from salam out Standing. All right, we'll talk to you on the mail bag on Sunday. Have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day and we will catch you next time. Asta pasta gott a murder, Gotta go.