Kubbooms.
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers.
In the penthouse.
Wow.
The clearing House of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
In the aend ewhere back in the podcast Dojo. The show goes on all week and long. The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler and Danny G. You have stumbled onto this podcast available on demand, as you know, because you already downloaded wherever you find podcast, whatever content provider we use. The company wants us to tell you about iHeart, which is the number one audio distributor of KAN out there. But wherever you found the podcast, we thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you. And Danny G. We'll have more tales from the Naked City in this the second podcast of the weekend. On a Saturday, we'll go into places we've never gone before. I will tell the story about something that happened on my trip to New York that I have never done. I've been to New York off and on for the almost thirty years i've gone to that city, and I did something for the first time in a generation. I'd never done this before and I
might never do it again. And it happened in the Big Apple this past week. We'll have that. We've got the Backscratcher, the Culture Vulture, Blend right in, the cameo in Brooklyn, the Big Apple Bites, and whatever else pops up. But we're gonna actually start with Backscratcher, Danny. And the reason we are going to start with Backscratchers because last week I teased it and we never actually got to it.
Yeah, we're backed up like New York City sewage exactly.
I need some preparation. H We're backed up so bad there. So let's get to it right now. We'll go to right to the actual reviews of this podcast. We'd love for you to help the show out, and it's absolutely free to do this. Go to the Apple podcast page. It's available for anyone in the description area. It takes a couple of minutes. You got to click some buttons and you gotta type your name in and type a
little review. It's not that hard, but if you're not tech savvy, it can be a pain in the behind. But you lay it all out there, Danny, you explain everything, so it's real simple to find where you need to go and help us out. And as we point out, the people that have the big office on the upper floor there that take the elevator, that have the corner office and make big decisions in programming, they read the reviews. I don't know why they do, but they do. So it helps us out.
Yeah, it helps with Apple ranking the top podcast in the country, So if you get five stars, that means you're just helping us move up to the top, rise to the top, like Dougie Fresh.
Yeah.
And to be honest, we could also just pay bots to give us reviews, but that costs a lot of money and we don't have the budget for it.
Yeah. No, they're not going to do that for us.
I'm proud to say that we have not spent one dollar on paid reviews. So any any review you see, good, bad or ugly, or from real people as far as we know, and now, if anybody wants to provide free bots to help us out, I certainly would be against that, but I don't have access to the bots. So until I get access to them, and if there's a very generous listener, I'm all years. But other than that, we'll just do it this way, the proper way, the way that it needs to be done. First review, Now, how
many we actually have some? This week? You have one? Two? See here? One two, three or four reviews?
What do you think I'm gonna say? Tree?
How bout for forward score? It's a lot.
Yeah, we need to get backed up more often.
Yeah, the first one says, no deals here great podcasts, a great podcast, five stars. Yet another great episode. The Alien Talk was very interesting. I highly recommend listening to Ben and Danny G every episode, so thank you. Another five star review from irmal dude. What's up, irmal dude? Thisays not your typical sports takes, very entertaining podcast. The Life and Times of Ben and Danny G is a great listen. They have great chemistry and this podcast has
a ton of momentum moving forward. How dare you? We have no momentum. We're only as good as our next day's podcast, Danny, our next day's podcast. That's it.
Lots of momentum, topped with wonderful ranch dressing.
Yeah, we have good clubhouse chemistry is what we have. That's the clean veteran leadership is what we have.
I believe our front office guaranteed both of our jobs.
Yes, a voter, we got the dreaded vote of confidence. There going very well. Next up on the review, we've got Reno Pinball Mike and it says Ben and Dany g start my weekends off with a smile. Ben and Dany G entertained with talk just about stuff. It doesn't have to be complicated or sports, just everyday chat about what is on their mind that night. Love it. Thank you guys, well, thank you Reno Pinball, Mike. We appreciate that.
Thank you. Thank you for all these reviews.
The show about Nothing which is something, something is nothing and the fourth and final review from the Rebel Viking said VPN required Games is his name and podcast reviews are his game. He's from Arkansas, but he's listening to us from Vilnius, Lithuania. This week. He said he had to sign up for a Virtual Personal Network to hear the podcast. Says it is worth the money, so thank you, James. And the great thing about a VPN not that I,
of course would go down that road. But the great thing about a VPN is you can watch Netflix shows you're not supposed to watch. You can watch TV programming you're not supposed to watch because you can claim you're in any area you want to be in. If you want to watch certain games that are blacked out, you can watch those. And so yeah, it's cool.
Yeah, I live in Texas.
Yes, I actually live on a small island near Guam, not in Gwam, but all it's between Hawaii and Guam.
That is true.
All right, so say thank you all and again if you want to help us out back scratcher, it's very simple to do, and the Apple podcast page is the way to go. It's in the of this podcast.
Yeah, click on the link inside the description right on this show, and then it'll take you to our Apple podcast page. Scroll down, you'll see the overall rating that we have for the shows, and then it'll say write a review next to that.
Click on that. You make a username and then give five stars and write your.
Review and you will be our favorite person of the day. Now here we go Culture Vulture. So I've been going to New York for a long time as Tales from the Naked City Part two. Been going to New York for many, many years. My brother has lived there for a long time. We grew up together and then he moved away, and I was still in high school when he moved away. And so every year or every other year, whether it's for work or something else, I have found
my way to the Big app. It has been the place I have been to more than any other place in my life. And now during the pandemic, I'd not been there since the pandemic started, which was in twenty twenty, so i'd been there. I'd not been there for three years. But other than that, other than that, regularly, whether it was for work. When I did the TV show for a year at NBC, flew back to New York, then drove up to Connecticut to do that show every month.
And I've been in with different jobs. I've had some of them, radio jobs, different things. On these various trips over the years, always find my way to the Big Apple. So but I did something I have never done in all my years going to that city. And this is a global exclusive. This is a Marconi Award winning possible podcast. Not that they give up Marconi Award for a podcast. What's the Podcast award. What's it called the award for podcast I don't know.
This is a ah, the razziez.
That is it? The uh, the potty.
It's an outhouse. It's a little miniature outhouse.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure there's an award.
Uh.
It's really smart if you're in if you're in the podcast business, you create an award and then give your podcasts an award and then you're good to go. Anyway, get to the point, please, So I did something that I had never done all my years going back there? What did I do? You want to take a guess what I did? It's something that a lot of people have on their bucket list. It was not on mind, Dan, it was not on my bucket. Go ahead, what do you think?
Okay? Is this very French or is this very high in the sky.
I would say it's not high in the sky. I don't know if it's French or not. I think it's more of an American thing.
Yeah.
Oh, because I was thinking that you finally took a tour of our lady the Statue of Liberty.
Oh, I have done the Statue of Liberty. I did that when my years ago, I was a kid when I went to the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island and all that, I've not been backed by the way.
I did it too.
But when I was there, the top half was closed off for renovations.
Oh yeah, well then you got to go back.
I know, so we only got to go to halfway.
You're going to go back. I predict in nine years, when your kids at that golden age nine to nine to twelve, when everything full and all that, you'll take your kid there.
That's what I'm sure I would love that.
Yeah, take them to Madison Square Garden to see Patrick.
Ewing, Hot trick Ewing, that New York Mecker Bockers, Midtown Manhattan. No, so are you ready for the big revealed? Then? Are you ready?
This is all right? What did you do?
This is when I became a culture vulture. I Ben Mahlor attended my first Broadway show. Oh my gosh, oh wow, I say Broadway play. Oh, and I'm happy to report that I I needed an ambulance almost by the time I got done with my first trip to a Broadway play. Did I have a heart attack though? Did I have a stroke?
No?
It makes plain. So my wife came to New York. She's not a big fan of New York, like she's just the's dirty. You know, it's a lot of walking, it's hot usually when we go, so it's not her cup of coffee. It's it's not mine either, But I I enjoy it. I like going and then leaving and and and knowing that it's there. But I don't really need to be there rare and appropriate, but it's fun when I'm there. It's a totally different experience than I'm used to, and it's everyone that goes there says the
same thing. So anyway, so I attended my first Broadway play and almost the inn name is Here's why. So my wife has kind of throw her a bone. Her birthday week was last week or this past this past week, and so she always wanted to see a Broadway shows us, all right. And the one we wanted to see we were going to see in la and we didn't see it The Book of Mormon. So it was playing and right there, Tony Award winning musical. I'm not a big
musical guy. Whatever, she wanted to see it. Get all dressed up, get all dulled up, go to see a Broadway show, all right, fine. So the Book of Mormon has been on Broadway for over a decade. It started I think at twenty eleven and it was playing at the Eugene O'Neill Theater. You ever been to the Eugene O'Neill Theater on forty ninth Street there in Manhattan.
Not that I know.
Okay, So this had a fin Way poc type of vibe to it. Now, there was no Green Monster, but it was construction. It was constructed and open. It was actually a little after Finway, but it's almost one hundred years old. It was open in nineteen twenty five. The Eugene O'Neill Theater am right in the middle of the theater district there in Midtown Manhattan, not on Broadway, by the way. And the difference I learned this years ago before I ever wanted to attend a Broadway show. The
difference between a Broadway and off Broadway show. You know what the difference is, Danny, one block. No, it's it's totally in the number of seats available in the theater. If you're below a certain number of seats, you're an off Broadway act. Even if you're in the same theater or just one theater over from where the Broadway theater is because it depends on how many seats you have, so they're very elitist. If you have a certain number
of seats, you're Broadway. If you're below that, you're off Broadway. But it could be the same whatever.
Oh that's crazy.
Yeah, so this was this was a Broadway show. It was a big theaterka.
Clearly, you and I are experts on Broadway show shows.
Absolutely, come on this show right here is a musical in many ways, So it's at the theater district, this old theater. The reason I claim it was like the fin Way experience, and my man Alp the Alien Opiner, will back me up on this. The seats were designed for someone who was about four eleven to five to three. Now I'm like six ' five of I stand up maybe six ' six if I shrug over, maybe six ' four depending on my posture. You know, I can hear my mom's voice stand up tall, but so fine. I
normally whatever I do my thing. And the theater was sold out and the only tickets we could get were in the middle of a row, not the end of a row, the middle of it. Oh no, yeah, you know I do overnight radio. I don't do daytime radio. I did daytime radio. I'd be sitting on the lower level. I was on the upper mezzanine of the Eugene O'Neal Theater, so we're in the middle row, upper balcony whatever. So
I squeezed into the seat. There's a woman fully masked up next to me who must not have heard the pandemics now over a older woman. So she's on one side. I got my wife on the other, and I've got to sit in a seat designed for someone that's five foot two or five foot three, and I'm six four. So this presents a mathematical problem. So I used some malor math and I determined I had to bend my
knees a certain direction. Now, originally I was bending them to the masked woman, but then I was like, I got so I stood up, and then I bent them the other way towards my wife, and of course the
person in front. It's you know how you get on a plane and there's like that one open seat next to you, yeah, and you're like, oh, close the doors close, the doors, close the doors, and it's always like that last person that comes in there and sits right where you're like, Okay, I'm gonna lay, I'm gonna lead lay on this seat, you know. So that's what happened. The last person to come into the Eugene o'neio theater sat right in front of me, got screwed on that. And
I'm trying to watch. I'm trying to be cultured and all that and watch the show, and I'm I feel like I'm old enough now where if you if I had gone to a probably show in my twenties or thirties, I would have wanted to kill myself. But now I'm like, all right, I can put up with it. Whatever. My wife really wanted to do it, so I was like, I'll go and I'll be into it, you know. And I figured I probably won't do it again, so whatever. But I was in such agony as I was trying
to sit. My knees were pushed to the brink. And I have a bad as we've talked about on the podcast, my right knees screwed up. It's manageable, but not if you sit at a weird angle. For it's a two hour show with a fifteen minute break in the middle, so like.
Double torture, torture wa and you're at a musical torture two that seating it's like you're being waterboarded while people are singing.
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And the Broadway crowd, yeah, they they are. They are just like totally going crazy. Man, They're they're loving this. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm looking at my watch. I'm like, oh god, well, you know, man, what am I gonna do. My wife was even like she's like, listen, you're too much pain. We'll leave at the intermission. You know, it's making the intermission.
So at the intermission, I was like, these tickets were pretty expensive, Danny, And I'm like, you know, I'm cheap, Like I don't want to leave. So I went to this usher. I said, listen, I said, is anything you can do? I said I can't. I can physically not sit there. I'm gonna need an ambulance. You can do? And she was very cool, this woman. I'll give her credit. I don't know her name. I'd give her, you know, name recognition. I didn't get her name. She's a very
nice woman, middle aged woman. And she said, yeah, you know these people right here in this this aisle seat. They left like very early in the show. And the theory was they got tickets to the Book of Mormon and they were like Mormon, and they were offended by the play, and so they left, like like ten minutes into the show. They took off. Yeah, Like, why wouldn't you read the review of the Book of Mormon. It's not it's not a recruiting thing for the Mormons.
It's things that are called a synopsis. You got to read it.
Yeah, you might want to check that out anyway. So fine, I was like, that's great. There were the seats were right there, and so me and the family we moved to those seats and it was still not very comfortable, but when I was able to move my legs onto the aisle, so that was perfect and it was great, and we saw the second half of the show and it was wonderful and now wonderful meaning I could actually stand up when the thing was over. I saw the Book of Mormon, didn't You didn't see the Book of.
No, not me, you did.
I thought, Hey, the only I've seen two Broadway shows. I saw The Lion King in New York, Okay, and I saw Early my very first trip to New York. I got dragged to Cats when it was on its last run.
I remember, kid, Yeah, I saw that some of the shows on Broadway, like shit that's been since I was a little kid, Like that Chicago thing is still on Broadway.
You know.
Covino and Rich they tell this story about how there was this old TV commercial that ran for like forty years on New York television for Cats, same old commercial. Their entire childhoods, their entire lives, entire lives. They saw the old Cats commercial.
Well, somebody had I ran into somebody at Fox who had seen the Book of Mormon. I guess it obviously wasn't you. But anyway, so I here's my malord review. Okay, I am not a musical person far as a musical like Broadway show. You know, this is my wife's I actually enjoyed it more than she did. She said she wanted to see the show for like ten years and she never got around to doing it. So and I told her, I explained to her what she you had high expectations. I had no expectations. I was like, I
didn't know anything about it. I just knew that it was written by the South Park guys. That's all I knew, and you know, everything like any Broadway show, as I anticipated, every scene ends up in its song. You know, everything's a freaking you know, freaking song. Fine. But the thing that really impressed me is the from a creative aspect,
it was. It was like watching a movie or a TV show and knowing how hard it is due to live performance, and we can both respect this, Danny being in the business that we're in that nobody tripped, nobody, nobody missed a note, nobody missed a line. Everyone nailed every single scene of the show. There wasn't one misstep as far as I know, There wasn't one line that was missed, and there was a lot of freaking dancing
and singing, and everything was perfect. It was like watching a TV show, except they were live in front of you and everything was edited already and professionally done. And so that from that the choreography standpoint, I was like, I'm sounded like an old fart, but I was like really impressed. I was like, that's really difficult to do. My only experience with live performance was elementary school plays,
which were complete shit shows. So to see this on the you know, as my brother said, well, that's New York, that's Broadway. That's how I was supposed to do it, you know, that's how they do it in New York. I was like, okay, fine, but and I used the comparison.
I remember as a kid at Circus Circus in New York or not New York, in Vegas at Circus Circus, and you see the Midway Magic show and the guy juggling the magician will drop, he'll drop some of the things he's juggling, you know, in the act, and you're like, oh, that's embarrassing. But there was none of that. And so that was my experience on Broadway. And if only the seats were bigger, I might go back. But I do
not think I will be back. I think that I can check that off my bucket list now, Danny and I when I someday die, hopefully long from now, I can say I did attend one Broadway show. I have gotten a little culture. And in the back of my head I heard the voice of Bob Page, who I briefly worked with at Fox Sports Radio, who yelled at me for not having any culture, for not going to museums and for not going to shows and things like that.
So take that, mister Page in your face, in your face, and now I can blend right in Danny with the cultured people of society. When I go to cocktail parties, I'll blenme and write in with them, because I can now say I.
Attended only if you're slouched over a little bit.
Well, there is that as well.
Had a much different week than you did. While you were show boating with some expensive Broadway seats. I was on offer up because as you see behind me, it's going to be a probably another month, I think. Before I got everything done, my storage unit is organized, tons of trash, tons of Salvation Army giveaways. And then I had a pile of expensive things, some good possessions. Think, could you know, be used by somebody else? So I put some things on offer up, including one of the
bicycles here in the garage. As you know, Ben, when you're dealing with certain items like a bicycle, the manpower and the time you put into it that almost is worth more than the actual money you get selling the stupid thing. I try to take the front tire off off this bike. I think it's going to be easy. So an hour before leaving for the Covino and Rich show. I take the torque rod off the front tire, but it won't budge. The stupid front brakes are blocking the
front tire from coming off. So now I need an Alan wrench. And I'm like, damn it, man, I know I got this size Alan wrench somewhere in the garage. Yes, Now I got to go on this whole chase of an Alan wrench. So I message the person. I'm like, hey, we're gonna have to do this tomorrow on Wednesday. I gotta find the right Allen wrench to get the front brakes off for you so I can get the bike over to you. And this person they also had a smaller vehicle, so they were going to need to buy
it and have the front tire off as well. I find that Alan wrench, get the front brakes off, get it in my trunk. I'm sweating, I'm a pig, I'm a mess. The sun is blaring on me as I'm getting this bike adjusted into the trunk so I can close it. I get to after my post production for
Covino and Rich. The young lady tells me, all right, I'm ready to meet you at the Whole Foods now she wants to test ride it first, So this means I'm gonna have to take it out of my trunk in the hot sun, put it back together, let her ride it on those little neighborhood streets back there behind our City National Bank building, and then take the wheel off in the front break and all that.
Mess again just to get fifty dollars.
That's a good deal.
Fifty dollars for her, Yeah, for her. Really, this is like a three hundred and seventy dollars bike.
How many people contact you to say I'll take it for free?
Do you know how many people?
Because I originally listed it for one twenty five and I can't tell you how many people said I'll give you twenty bucks.
I'll give you, forty bucks, I'll give you.
So it got to the point where I just dipped the price down to fifty and she's the first one that said, hey, i'll give you the.
Fifty four it okay.
So this is where I blend in though, And this will really tell you something about our beautiful neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, California, not even one block away from our studios. I take the bike. You know, there's one thing about all Whole food stores. For whatever reason, they all have shitty small parking lots. I don't know what it is. It's like Trader Joe's same thing. I don't know what it is about those designer grocery stores, but you can't park your damn car in there.
And then that one in particular, the one in Sherman Oaks is like the worst because it's right off the four oh five freeway and so you got people cruising off the freeway. I'll go get some grapes or get some strawberries in there at the Whole Foods. Yeah.
Now we've mentioned this Whole Foods because Looney has seen celebrities there. I have some movie stars there.
I have as well. I don't even go. I go there like once every couple of years. It's not even open when I'm on the air. And they all live up in the hills up there and they come down they do their shopping at that Whole Foods. It's to forget going to the Hollywood Hills. Right there, That Whole Foods is a celebrity mecca.
I did a couple of laps around that small parking lot. Finally was able to pull into a spot that somebody pulled out of good timing. I get my car parked in there, open up my trunk, take the bike parts out. But now I'm realizing where the hell am I going to put this thing together at? So I noticed there's a strip of grass that's beyond right beyond the parking lot. So if you continued on that road, it would take you to the two freeways that split the four h five and the one oh one. Yeah, I take an
old towel. I set that down on the sidewalk. I flipped the bike upside down like a mechanic. I take my toolbox and I look around, and I realized I almost look like a real freak right now. It's, you know, six point thirty pm on a Wednesday in Sherman Oaks, and I have this bike flipped over like a bike mechanic on the sidewalk right by a freeway, and next to me to my left is a homeless person sleeping.
It was just really strange when I looked around and realized what it could look like if I was in a city where anyone was paying attention to me.
But ding, ding, ding ding, that's the thing. Ben. I sat there for I got down.
I took another towel, old towel out of my trunk so that I could sit down on the sidewalk. She obviously took the ride on the bike before I sat down, like a maniac, and took it apart again.
So I put it together.
She wrote it took it apart, and I got that front break off, I got the torque rod off, I got that front wheel off, and I held the wheel up, and I'm like, victory. Nobody bat it an I Nobody parking at the Whole Foods that was looking at me thought anything of it. The people who happened to be walking on the sidewalk, including the homeless people, thought nothing of it.
I blended right in.
It was so odd.
She venmos me the fifty bucks. I help her get it in her car. She drives away Victory with offer up. But man, I couldn't help. But wonder what that must have looked like to an onlooker if anybody had cared.
That's the beauty of La. Nobody cares. They're not. Everyone's in their own world. The same thing in New York, you know, people just do their own own thing like that.
But I really don't you like that.
I like that about big cities that you could basically do what you need to do in your own little world and people aren't paying attention to it.
I like it, but it's part of me. Like it's occasionally you're like, wait a minute, am I am? I Do I even exist? You know? I am I even here? I mean what?
Like?
The part I don't like is people don't treat anyone kindly because they're only worried about themselves. You know, everyone's out looking out for themselves, like just the common little courtesies that make life more enjoyable, like opening doors for people, or acknowledging people when they open doors, you know, and all that. Like that kind of stuff bothers me when people knew that.
But well, you know.
What I lived up to that. I gave her the Alan wrench for her to keep nice. I gave her a small little pump for the tires because I have a couple of them in my garage.
She was a happy customer.
Now here's the move, Danny. When you go to Vegas to see your raiders, next time you take that fifty dollars, you go to the roulette table. You pick red or black, and probably you're a Raider fans, you'll bet black, and you bet it on black and then just you can double your money, or you'll black thirty two. There you go, black thirty two. You can make even more than double
your money on that. Knock yourself out. So we've already gone along on this, But I do have some others tails in the Naked City I would like to share. So we'll combine Cameo and Brooklyn and big Apple Bites and a rapid fire at any point, Danny, you can
stop me at any point. But just a few other thoughts I had before they leave my head from Tales of the Naked Tales from from the Naked City, as we like to say, because as you know, if you listen and you used to read the the tabloids from back in the day, that the Naked City where the names are omitted, as we will protect the guilty and things that I can agress. So we do not promote this often enough, But I am on Cameo and that
is a pay to play service cameo dot com. If you're a super fan of this show, or you know someone that has a big life event birthday, bar Mitzvah's weddings, divorces, you name it, life advice, Bonus Malard monologues, any of that kind of stuff on demand. It is there on cameo dot Com. Just search for my name, Ben Mahler. I love to do it. If it's something that you want, if it mean a lot to you, that would be great if you know somebody that's a big fan of
the show. So with that being said, I don't promote it, so I don't really get that many cameos people know about it. Some of the super fans know about it. But the timing on this is amazing. So I'm heading to the airport and I get a notification while I'm on the flight to New York saying that you have been requested on Cameo. And this is one of my regular super fans, Emmanuel, who's a big, big support with the show. And so I'm on vacation. I'm like, well,
I got to do this. It's time sensitive. His birthday was coming up, so I did not want to let my friend down. So I was walking around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, right across from the Williamsburg Bridge there in beautiful Brooklyn, a hipster neighborhood. As we were going around to see the Scott you know, the sunset there and over Manhattan
from Brooklyn, and it was very cool. Got the skyline of Manhattan, the background the water there from the East River, and I walked away from my wife was with my brother and my sister in law, and I wandered off to record my cameo for my guy. It was very awkward, Danny, I am yapping into the camera. Behind me is the sun setting over Manhattan and there are a bunch of people. It's like a park. There's like a little bridge and there's a park there, not a bridge, it's more like
a dock area. I don't know whatever.
So does a mugger come running into the scene.
No, that did not have it. But but I'm trying to like get into my cameo and I had some thoughts in my head. I wanted to give to a manual and it was very nice to do this. And so everyone's staring at me, like what is We just
talked about people not paying attention. That's normally true, but this, you know, everyone's looking where I'm I'm standing with because I wanted the background of the Manhattan skyline, uh water, So I've got the camera in front of me, the skylines behind me, but right behind my hand I'm holding my camera are like these these college age girls and some other young people and they're all looking like, what is this fucking loser doing? You know? And uh, and.
So it was very very Taylor Swift concert.
Yeah, it was very odd. You know, in my in my head, they were listening to everything I was saying. You know, they probably weren't, but they in my head, they were listening to everything I was saying. And so I did complete the cameo. I did that and got it done, but it was very uncomfortable for me as far as the big apple bites real quick.
Uh, you know.
I when we get a bunch of questions about this on the email bag for next week, probably some of the foods you we talked about this a little bit. Yesterday. I went to some of the more memorable meals. I had Kats's Deli in in New York there, the famous deli from Harry met Sally.
Yeah, been there. It was good.
It's good. I gotta tell you, I think Langers is better. Though unpopular opinion, Langer's Deli in La better than Katz's.
No, I mean, I would agree with you. It's cool though, Yeah, it's cool.
It's historic. It's been there since the eighteen hundreds. The problem with katz Is is I had not been there in a few years and they built this massive There's like a Marshals and a CVS like right over kats Is del almost over the top of it. So I was like, where the hell is it? And I was a little confusing. The neighborhoods changed down there on Houston, not Houston Street, Danny, Houston Street, even though it's spelled Houston,
it's pronounced Houston's what I da, Junior's Delhi. My friend Bob Fesco recommended that he's from that area, does the morning show in Kansas City. Roberta's Pizza in Brooklyn like a hipster pizza place. Pizza was all right, Joe's Pizza in the East Village that was better. The Mediterranean food which was great. The Donner House on Fourteenth Street. And the reason we ate there their logo. They've basically ripped off the porn hub logo. Yeah, and they made it. I gotta send you this photo.
Let me see you can find the photo.
Okay, you got to see this, Danny. You got a kick. So we're walking down to my brother's place in the East Village and we see this sign I'm like and immediately we were like, wait a minute, that's they've just stolen the porn hub logo. What is that? And let me send this to you guys check this out. And yes, so they must have gone on to the like the pornhub site and said I love that logo so much and I want that and it's a German kebab Mediterranean shop and that's the Uh.
It's interesting that you say that, because during the Super Bowl, yeah, saw something similar for Arizona State's extension classes all over the buses there in Phoenix, and it was the same logo, style and color as porn Hub.
And of course Covino and Rich noticed this immediately.
No, you should have the nervous hearts. Oh well, if you have a successful brand, might as well borrow from that successful brand. You know. It's like, remember remember in what was that classic movie with Eddie Murray Eddie Murphy and our City Hall Hall coming to America mcdowells, McDowell's, same same concept, same time.
I like that. So the kabob, what kind of kabab?
Did you have Well, no, I had a a plate. Well actually it was like a sandwich with the chicken and the beef. It was really good. I gotta tell you, that's probably the top Mediterranean food I've had. I love eating Mediterranean food.
Did they serve up some hummus with it?
Uh? They had that, I'm not I didn't have any of that there. They really good garlic sauce. They give you a lot of food, and the New York the prices are expensive, very but that was the top place. So if you're ever in New York or if you live there, it's on fourteenth Street, right around second third Avenue, and it's really, really good. I got around on the subway Danny all day, every day, subway all day, got one of those Metro week passes. Now, I was a
little worried about the safety here. I've been following the news reports coming out of the New York Post and some of the other news in the Big Apple, the crime Blotterer all over the internet.
That was just to promote the new Spider Verse movie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was convinced I was gonna get shanked as soon as I walked into the subway. But I gotta tell you, I was pleasantly surprised. I felt relatively safe. Now, I generally don't feel unsafe because I'm a big guy, so I don't normally feel unsafe. But the reason I was actually told by somebody is they had just had this subway slasher that they had just caught like a couple of days before we got there.
And so with that and July fourth coming up, the people, the idiots that run New York City realize, well, we've got a big problem on our hands here. We got a subway slasher, bad publicity. So they sent out. There were police, and there was such a huge police presence all over the main subway lines in midtown Manhattan, which is where I was, like the touristy parts of Manhattan, that really I felt like I was never that far
away from police. I felt pretty safe, And you know, I want to keep those donations coming in from tourists and all that. So I had no issues other than the subway stations being up to standard with rats everywhere, trash, homeless people smelling like urine and shit. But everything else Danny was was fine, Everything else was good.
Everything else was beautiful.
Yeah, picture perfect, And you know if I'm being there when he gets hot in New York, even hotter in the.
Subway, hotter in the subway, and all that stench comes rising up to the streets.
Yes, so you've got not only the urine, the shit, the rats, You've got also the wonderful smell of body odor that's mixed in. I did something different one night, late at night, I left the hotel. My wife was tired, she was having a bad day, so I let her kind of rest, and then I went out of the hotel. I was staying near Grand Central station, and I got
the full New York City at night experience. I just like walking around observing people and like being at the zoo, except the people are the animals at the zoo, and that's what you feel like when you're in New York. So I walked around. I walked from Grand Central over to Times Square, I guess aimlessly rambling around there, cruising through the night satsheaving my way around random streets. I saw a construction crew place a giant cow up in Times Square, and that was kind of cool. I had
never seen that before. It was it was like twelve thirty at night. I walked over to the Radio City Music Hall, famous venue in New York, the iconic building there. I took some photos I might get one framed, just kind of randomly with my iPhone. I walked by the Fox News headquarters there, and I walked past NBC. All the big networks are all right around there. And then I decided, I said, you know what, I got some
time on my hands. I'm in New York. How often do I do a story about, you know, NFL meetings at the league offices in Manhattan, or NBA headquarters in New York, or MLB. So what I did was, I decided to do the Axis of Sports Evil Tour, Big Sporty Danny and I walked to the Global Headquarter is where Adam Silver works for the NBA, rob Man Fraud Baseball, and Roger Goodell mister Softie there for the NFL. And here's what I noticed. All of them are within point
seven miles of one another in Manhattan. They are ridiculously close. They are less than ten blocks away from one another, and actually closer than that. Major League Baseball's offices are on Avenue of the Americas. The NBA is on Fifth Avenue. They're real close. The NBA and Major League Baseball. And then the next street over is Park Avenue, and that is where three forty five Park Avenue, that is the
NFL's headquarters. They're really separated by three major streets and some other few minor streets, but three major streets in midtown Manhattan, and every building, every one of these buildings, there are no signs saying this is the home of Major League Baseball, this is the home of the NBA, this is the home of the NFL. Well, they're all
just generic, cold concrete skyscrapers. Although I did love the baseball one because that I remember when the I think it was the barstool people last year, Danny, they had a little rally and they were called man Fraud, Man Fraud.
Yeah, I remember that.
It was echoing in this little kind of cutout area and I so I was like standing. I was like, oh, that's I remember where this happened, you know, And then that was that was kind of cool. But so I have now walked and I walked around. I was like, where are some of the restaurants these people are going to? What? You know, because you figure you're work in those buildings, you're eating at the restaurants around there, and they're all
really expensive. They're all like, you know, high falutin. You know, it's a whole different world. They It really is the Manhattan bubble. And not only the Manhattan bubble, it is the that part of Manhattan.
Uh.
So I got a little taste of it, the robber baron, the oligarchs of big sporty and and doing their thing, their new things. I picked up a new nickname, by the way, Danny. On that same trip walking around, I was walking down one of the side streets trying to work. I was making my way to the NFL headquarters. So it's not a bad neighborhood. But it's like one in the morning and I'm walking there and just even though it's Manhattan, this part there was a side street, there's
really nobody else out. There was one one dude I see off in the business, this black dude who's walking towards me, and he appears to be I guess doing some urban camping, Danny. Some would call it homelessness. I call it urban camping. Uh. And he appeared to uh have maybe gone to the pharmacy, but not the pharmacy we normally go to. Maybe a street pharmacy and uh, but not like a CBS or a a Dwayne or Reed or whatever. And and so he saw me and
and we're on the same side of the street. And I was like, yeah, I'm bigger than this guy.
Whatever.
I didn't win. It didn't feel intimidated or unsafe. If I'm walking, he's walking and I'm not gonna say anything. He I figured he won't say anything. And I walked by, and I hear this guy yell, man, you too tall. He's like, he yells it at me as we strolled by each other. So this guy gave me the new nickname Danny, the same nickname that an NFL player for the Cowboys back in the eighties and the seventies hac Ed Jones. Right, remember you remember too Tall ed Ed
too Tall Jones of Coorse. Yeah, so I was flattered by that.
I thought you too tall? I was.
I thought that was pretty cool.
Uh.
And you had mentioned in I think it was yesterday's podcast, the Patriot hat that I'm wearing. And this is a very comfortable hat, the pat Patriot. I love the pat Patriot logo. And there's a reason my mom had a little jacket when I was a little kid made for me, and it was the pat Patriot logan. I used to wear it when I was a little baby, and I still remember that logo. I love that logo. So this hat fits like a glove. It's very comfortable. It's perfect
travel hat. So I'm traveling, and of course I'm in enemy territory for some reason, I guess I thought I was going to Boston, but I was going to New York. And so I wearing the Patriot hat, and one very loquacious fan of the Giants for Big Blue there approaches me at JFK and he makes this this. He's like, hey, that's a nice hat. That's an old school Patriots hat. Sorry about those two super bowls, right, you know, he's like that kind of thing, and what you meaning that?
You know?
Of course, I'm like, I like the Patriots, b I'm a RAM fan, and you know the the fluke Eli manning super Bowls. So I had to then represent the Patriots, even though I'm not really like a hardcore Patriot fit, I had to represent the Patriots. So then I returned friendly Fire, and so I responded to the pompous Giants fan. I said, well, I hope you enjoyed that Joe Judge payback. You know, how'd that work out for you? And then the guy kind of rolled his eyes and put his
tail between his legs and he walked off. So I was very proud of myself. I had the Joe Judge come back, and I did that to defend the honor of the patriots, is what I did. And then one final note, final final. I know we've gone long on this, and I apologize the big apple bites, but the fairy not that kind of fairy. My favorite free activity in New York I did it yet again, the Staten Island Ferry. If it's free, it's for me. And I love the
views of Manhattan. Awesome to took the subway down to Wall Street station, walked over through Wall Street and the Financial Titans, and then walked over to the port there and leaves every thirty minutes. You've got beautiful view use of the Lower Manhattan skyline. On the way out, you got to sit on the left side of the boat. Got to sit on the left side of the boat,
get the views there or stand and amazing photos. You go right by on the left side the Statue of Liberty which is very cool, and just the whole thing. Ellis Island, get the Staten Island. It's not a very long boat ride, Get Satn Island. You run off the boat. Everyone's got to be off the boat. You run back onto another boat, and you're back on your way back to Manhattan. The whole thing takes maybe forty five minutes, probably less than that, and it is ononderful, wonderful, wonderful one.
All right, Saturday, Danny, anything you want to promote, we'll get out of here. We get the mail bag on Sunday.
What are you got going on Saturdays? For you? And I all about the podcast.
So a big thank you to everybody downloading all three every weekend.
A absolutely, we will have the mail bag, will have Pop goes to the culture on the Sunday Podcas. Yes, we'll talk to you. Then have a wonderful rest of your day later.
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