Cut Booms.
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 soul fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter 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 air andywhere the Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler and Danny g As.
We slide in to a Friday, a brand new weekend. Otherwise we wouldn't be here doing this podcast unless it was a brand new weekend. But we're here again, hanging out,
and we thank you for listening. We know today is a very difficult day to pry away people to listen because it is day two of the Madness of March Tournament, which if you're into gambling, or you like college of basketball, or maybe just like watching random sporting events all day, a lot of people take the Thursday and Friday off the They say the two greatest days if you love basketball and gambling, the two greatest days are these two because there's games all day long from if we're on
the West coast from like nine in the morning all the way up until ten o'clock at night, so it's it's March madness. Are you into?
I'm not.
I get to I'm watching these games. And then I did a monologue last night about the tournament. But I'm not really feeling and I don't.
I don't.
I'm not really feeling the tournament.
I mean, it doesn't consume me. But as a big sports fan, it's fun to follow along and see how you do with all your guessing and small bit of research you did. Like for two hours, I clicked on all the air quote experts for each game and saw the pros and cons of picking either side and who the experts thought would win. And then of course you got to go. You can't just go with all favorites,
so you got to pick some Cinderella teams. And you don't want to be a douche who has like a number one versus number two up at the top versus a one and a two again for the final four.
Well that's how they get you, though, That's how they get you can't pick all the favorites. You realize most years, if you pick the favorites, you will end up winning like seventy of the bets.
True, if there's always one Cinderella though, there's usually one Cinderella team that gets somewhat deep into the tournament.
Yeah, well, I hope you didn't bet on Nevada yesterday, as I did.
I had two teams that already jacked up. I'm sure you want to hear about my bracket right now.
Yes, And one thing we love is people's brackets. It's great radio. Absolutely. I had two podcasts.
I had two losses on opening day of the tournament BYU and Nevada. Yeah.
Well, Nevada though, Steve Alford, the old Bruin forever is going to be a Indiana hoosier or what for me? But Steve Alford and Nevada one of the epic March Madness choke jobs. Seventeen points man, seventeen point lead they lost.
Yeah, at one point they had gone on like a twenty four to four run, and I thought all money on this one. Nope.
Yeah, Now the big story of the week that trump the tournament. Now, we don't do sporty here. This is not a sporty podcast, But I don't think this is actually sporty. This is like mafios so scambling. Ah, yes, scandal is so good. I love Scan. I did not expect to get a Dodger scandal. I was. It was why I was sorting to Jason and Harmon when I was They were leaving and I was coming into the studio and they were like, are you gonna watch the Dodger game? Are you gonna be up for the Dodger Oh, yeah,
of course I'm gonna be up. It's after the show. I'm gonna I'm gonna check that out. And and then we were like, well, what's gonna happen as well? I'm sure somebody will get hurt by the time I get home. I didn't realize though, that it was Otani that would be in upheaval right, that there would be this this turbulence with Otani. But I will tell you this though, Dan, I know, I did another monologue last night about it. I'm sure this will be I heard it.
I heard it your Thursday in your Wednesday into Thursday show. I was all ears. I was listening.
Yeah. And so the feeding frenzy that we've not gotten that I don't feel like this is a full feeding frenzy. I had an interesting conversation with somebody in the media who and by the way, this story is so crazy. I was getting people that work in news media that were casual friends of mine that were sending me message it was going on with Otani. You know anything about Altani? What's going on? I was like, well, I don't really.
I mean, everyone I know is in Korea with the Dodgers this week, so I didn't really I'm not talking to them on the phone while they're in Korea, so I don't really know exactly what's going on. They're like, they're trying.
To get tap on the podcast immediately.
Yeah, and so so this is like a wide ranging but the whole scandal element. People love scandals and people it's funny because people, Ah, I don't like scandals. I don't like but people love scandals. They take pleasure out of it that there's somebody that is doing something. It's not damn, somebody's in trouble, right, it's titillating, it's great and all that. And then either way, either you're excited because they get punished or you're happy because they got
away with it. But it it does work as a nice distraction.
Oh yeah, And I saw Padre fans all over social media doing cartwheels and celebrating as if they did something awesome.
Yeah. My favorite, though, is the Yankee fans and the Giant fans and the Phillies and all these teams that were sucking the toes like a high school kid in Oklahoma for licking them for yam you know, for Yamamoto and Oton. All these teams that wanted Oton right they were, and they they didn't get him, and they were caught
flat footed. And so now they're like, they're like celebrating the possible demise of and he is lucky he's not a football player because in football, although not even as much lately, but remember there was that stretch where if this happened and involved a football player, you would be put on the commissioner's exemplst until we figure out what's going on. But there's not even any talk of that.
They're like, no, it's a it's an odd it's an odd story considering uh, the magnitude of that that for so long was the the ultimate final frontier with gambling. Of course most and I love gambling, but you can't be having the people in the sport betting kind of obvious here, even though baseball is fully in bed as a gambling operation.
So it's yeah. So I think there's an underlying topic here, and that is why the hell is gambling not legal in the state of California.
Well, and I blamed the voters the other night because this should have been legal. It is the casinos, the Indian casinos in California blocked the legislation because we know people are easily manipulated, and that's why there's so much money in politics, because human beings are weak, and if you spend enough money in advertising for a political either
pro or against something, you can get it passed. That's why it's usually the person that has the most money wins an election, not necessarily because that they're the greatest candidate, but because they can brainwash people to vote a certain way. And the people behind the Native American Indian casinos in California, they wanted more control. This is what I was told. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I was from I understand they wanted more control of the California sports wagering market.
And if that law had passed, it would have been the big companies like DraftKings and fan duel that would have had more more control than them, and so they're they're going to have it pass, but they're gonna have new legislation that will have them in control. It's all it's about who's in control of the money. It's always about the money. But that's the thing. If this had been legal, Uh, it would have been a thinking. But you know the whole point. Listen, it's like the whole
drug dealer thing. Right, if you go down to cvs and buy drugs, everything's good, right, but yeah, you know, the neighborhood drug dealer. You can't be doing that, right, You can't, you know, because you gotta get you gotta get tax money out of.
It, exactly. You have to have a certificate that way the money flows to the right people.
If Otani and his guy paid taxes so our politicians could waste that money, that's fine. But oh, you know, you can't just do it. It's not even a neighborhood bookie. No neighbor back in the day, I might have known some guys that ran book in the neighborhood. And they're not taking action at that level. They're not. They can't, they can't cover it. So you're telling millions of dollars. That's a high end. That's a bougie situation, right, That's
not your normal run of the mill situation. And the sports writers though, the people that cover these the sports like, there's not a lot of street smarts, you know, they just they This is one of my problems.
With a ton of mo though.
Oh yeah, yeah, they are the moral But the thing that drives me nuts is they they just believe whatever these these teams say, or in this case, the lawyers who are being paid by oh toney. And I don't know, I don't know what's going on, but I do know we're not getting the whole story. I do know that that there's more, and the story has already changed, right, And I'm of the agent and I'm probably outdated now, but I'm of the age that you're supposed to assume
nothing in question everything. Now it is, it's backwards, it's never questioned anything, and assume everything is right. You know, there's no bad stuff going on, everything's great, and we'll see what happens. But if Baseball doesn't pursue this, the only way anything will come of it is if the Feds go after Otani. By the letter of law, a wire transfer that goes to pay off an illegal gambling debt is punishable by up to two years in jail, up to his weasel terminology. So that alone is a
federal violation. Now Otani's claiming that he didn't know that he was unaware of the situation, But how do you get someone to send a couple five hundred thousand dollars checks or wire transfers?
Do you know what the actual crime is? Is it wired transfer daring money to an illegal operation?
Uh? Yeah, Well, so there's the federal if you if you knowingly, I don't even know if the word knowing these, it's a federal law that if you if you wire transfer money, it's a heagh. They took down the mob, right though, you know, using wired transfers or whatever they
call it, going across state lines or whatever. And so as I read it and as I understand it, it's it's just if you knew you were sending money on a wire that was going to be used to pay off an illegal gambling situation, that is, you violated federal law, and it's it it's two years. But but who knows if it's deeper than that, right, you know, this guy. Otani and this guy were tight for over a decade. I mean, it's hard to imagine that they didn't talk.
Even if Otani wasn't betting, it's almost impossible to think that he didn't know what was going on, Right, this guy was justitting on big soccer.
Games and soccer football college football. Let's just hope that no MLB gambling was involved and there are no traces of digital gambling slips with Well, they would use numbers, like you said on your monologue, right.
Yeah, they don't use names. Well that's what they're supposed to do. They don't use and because you know the names, people obviously can track down. But yeah, that would be much. I would say it would be bigger than Pete Rose.
Yeah, I was going to say the name Pete Rose was trending for two days.
But I would say this would be bigger on the days. You know. In let's go down the parallel dimension, Danny in the Twilight Zone, multiple dimensions. There's a dimension where al Tani was betting and he's starting for the Angels against the Oakland Athletics, and the Angels are a big favorite, and you know, it just wasn't on that day, just had a bad start pitch that well, and the A's ended up somehow winning the game and all that. And you know that you can have so much influence on
that as much as a quarterback. Right.
No, I just don't even want to entertain that idea. I don't want to think he did any of that.
Yeah, no, I don't either. I'd like to think that this is this is nothing. But I don't believe attorneys. That's the problem. I mean, it's hard for me to believe attorneys, you know what I'm saying, Like, just you got to use some critical thinking, right, not just for the sake of argument. You just gotta you know, sometimes you have to be the lone voice out there.
Well, there's there's so many examples throughout the history of sports where players like Charles Barkley, like Michael Jordan love to gamble, Alan Iverson and others. And the thing is what, it's a thrill if you win, you're part of the action, a big part of it. With that kind of money, Well, let's just hope that a guy like Otani knew even even if he did like to gamble. Hey, I don't want to risk my career on something like this.
Yeah, but it's it's one of those things, the addiction of gambling. It's like it's hard to it's almost impossible to stop, and they have every trick to keep you to continue to gamble, and it's amazing the way it works. Than listen I do a TV show. Hopefully they'll be back for year two. I don't know that hasn't been
determined yet. But about gambling, but like, you can't be betting if you've already won the lottery, if you're guys like even the I would say the interpreter, what was he making three hundred four or five hundred thousand dollars a year?
Five hundred thousand dollars a year?
If you're making five hundred thousand dollars where I come from, your.
You are above middle class even in Los Angeles that far hundred.
You're doing well and you've got an easy job. You don't have to hit the back door slider, the lollipop curve, you don't have to do any of that. You just have to show up and and interpret, just repeat some cliches from Otani. You get to travel on the team. Yeah, no elbows surgery required you're living the dream, right you're and then this this pops up. And then there's the other possibility that they were both involved in it. And this guy is the old Chris Carter got to have a fall guy.
Yeah, And one of our listeners tweeted, he said, I think the interpreter was gambling, racked up an insane amount of debt, Otani stupidly and illegally covered him, and now the lawyers are getting involved.
Yeah, I know that's what that's kind of the story that it's going around. But well, we'll see. It's gonna be up to the Fed. So my position on this is it's not major League Baseball will do nothing. They will be the Ostridge and they'll bury their head in the ground and be like I didn't see anything nothing, you know, I didn't see anything. Move on nothing here, move on. It's the fifth art. How about it? Today is National goof Off Day today? Do you you're a
goof off to that? It sounds yeah? It's also Bavarian, uh Creep's day or no, what is it called crepe? That's it crep crape. Yeah, that's how they say it in France though. Yeah, so there's uh You've got that International Seal Day, big big holiday, and it's National Donald Day, so I have to celebrate every Donald, like Donald the Donald. Do you have A'donald duck don don? That's about the only two Donald and Donal. The main reason I brought this up today is because it's talk like William Shatner
Day today. Did you know that's a holiday?
That's stupid?
My guy shats spats with shats.
We made everything sound dramatic.
Today pays tribute to famous Canadian actor William Shatner, who has gained worldwide appreciation because of his battles with the mal Or militia back in the day. No, so yeah, it's an opportunity to pay tribute to his more memorable performances. And you just did an impersonation and so you kind of get the whole the whole bit. So you go happy, talk like William Shatner Day. And that's just just great, just absolutely wonderful. Time out for.
The word of the week, The word of the week.
Are you ready for the word of the week. The word of the week. All right, so the word this week is mud slinging. Mud slinging is It's one word. Mud is slinging.
Is a oh mud sling Does it have a dash?
No, No, it's all word. Okay, yeah, as I spell it, it's one word, So mud slinging, which is appropriate. The last couple of weeks we've seen a lot of mud slinging. You could argue the Otani story with the gambling, there's a lot of mud slinging involved in that. You could
claim that the case also Aaron Rodgers. A couple of weeks ago, his name came up as a possible candidate to run for the vice president's seat in the upcoming election, and immediately immediately people were just like all over Aaron Rodgers and just trying to bury him with political dirt and all this so mud slinging, which has been part of the political spectrum since the days when politicians would
actually throw real mud. Well maybe maybe not that, but but it goes back to ancient Latin and the origin of mud slinging. It goes from a Latin saying which translated means throw plenty of dirt and some of it will surely stick. However, the rise in popularity did not really take place until the nineteen hundreds, but still here we are in twenty twenty four and that term is still regularly used going back to the nineteen hundred and so,
but it originated in Latin. And it just means you throw plenty of dirt and some of it is sure to sure to stick, which is great life advice. Right, if you're a single guy and you're dating, you know, you've got to make a lot of offers to people for dates before somebody takes you up on it. Right, And if you're that kind of goes where anything in life, where it threw out a bunch of dpicts out there and see where they land exactly exactly, well you know about that, but you know a lot of Dick and
Dayton stuff. You know you could do that absolutely. Let's we haven't done science in all I want to we do scientifically, and there's a few.
Science stories scientifical.
Yeah, we'll get scientifical si science. I saw the stir. We didn't talk about it on the Overnight show. I don't know if it came up on a Coveno and Rich. But the science community was buzzing this week because there's this exercise pill, which is they claim almost here. Now that's weasel terminology, almost here, but they say that this exercise pill is.
This supposed to be like ozembic but in a pill form.
Yeah. So the scientists from the Washington University School of Medicine that's in Saint Louis, they have they've gotten pretty close to creating a pill that would give you the same health benefits as actually working out, and so you wouldn't have to go to you wouldn't have to get ten thousand steps, you wouldn't have to get regular physical activity, and you wouldn't have to worry about any of that.
It's a little bit different then. This is more like a magic pill.
Yeah. Yeah, so they say, you know, substituting physical and mental health benefits of exercise with a pill. They say, you know, it seems crazy, but they claim that this is the They've got it. They're close to it, and they can replace a lot of the exercise stuff. All exercise, of course, you know, you get your metabolism going and all that. But magic magic maybe in like when your kids old, Danny and we're really old, like they'll just you just take a pill. If you want to lose weight,
you take a pill. You want to exercise, take a pill, and and you're good. That's it, But they claim the secret behind the exercise pill lies in the activation of estrogen related receptors, proteins that play pivotal role in the body's response to physical activity. So they've been spending a number viewers on this research wise, and they claim they have found the magic Goldilocks formula. I'm a doctor, and
it will provide similar results to h to exercise. I guess that's good if you're you can't get around right, if your legs gave out, or you're kind of old, you're not mobile and you're gonna have to you know, sitting around.
While stuck a video studio all day.
I know I've been walking. I've been trying to get some a little bit of steps at night. So sometimes during the top of the hour I'll walk up and down the hall, just back and forth because I'm a loser.
But I wouldn't used to walk around Sherman Oaks, California.
I did. Yeah, I didn't get shanked either, which I think i'd get shanked. I think I think these days that would not not go. Yeah, But I've starting to doing a little bit of that movement because I was just like I sitting there and I didn't leave the studio for four hours. I usually get there an hour before the show, so it was like five hours just like sitting around. And so I was like, you know, I didn't I don't go around the building. I knew
exactly how long I had to time it. I could walk around the building and then that took about about five minutes. Usually the top of the hour paused like six six and a half minutes, seven minutes, something like that. So it was that kind of thing. And uh, yeah, so I've been getting that extra spats pill. What are the side effings like that ozembic? Aren't there a lot of people having issues with thozampic right now?
Oh yeah, you puke your guts out. There's just lots of issues as far as feeling sick to your stomach.
And is it one of those deals also where if you get off of it, you'll just gain all the way back, so you have to be on it for the rest of your life. Is that kind of thing?
Yeah, because you need to also be working out, and a lot of people can't work out while they're on that drug because they feel nauseous.
Yeah, no, wonderful, but that's a lot of a lot of medication and the conspiracy theorist to me would say that's why or that's what the drug companies want, right, The secret is to get You don't want to cure people, You want to give them medicine they need for the rest of their life because you've got built in built in customers. Just like every business, we've done stories. I don't know if that was when you were with me, it might've been before, but we've done stories. The key
to business monthly payments. If you cell phone companies, my god, everyone's got to have a cell phone. You all got to have a smartphone. You pay yourself, sell bill every month, but ye's guaranteed revenue, yeah, month after month.
Remember Willie Wonka, he was inventing the everlasting gobstopper. Put everybody out of business because the only need one.
We should have like a podcast club. Remember Oprah had the book club back in the day when she was big. Oprah, well she was, she's always been big. But before she was big, she was already big, but then famous. Well well yeah, but no, she had like the book of the month. And if you can get people to do something regularly and make it a habit, you filthy rich, filthy rich. It's like I just read a story this week.
I know it's off off the topic of conversation, but the story about streaming and how insane to the membrane it is now that streaming households court of the data are now ending sixty one dollars per month on four services. Sixty one bucks a month for streaming, which now, my cable bill was. I got rid of cable years ago. My cable bill was really insane because I had all the sports packages and I was before Eddie told me
about the Russian websites. But this was like I think my cable bill was like one hundred and fifty bucks a month or something like that. It was ridiculous. But sixty one bucks a month and you're getting four streaming services, and you know this is going to end up. This will end up eventually. It'll be within a year or two, it's going to be one hundred bucks a month. Like
that's where it's it's just going to be. The people think they were getting a deal, and they were getting a deal for a while, but eventually it's just gonna be the same as cable. You're paying the same amount of money. I don't even know. I don't even want to know how many any streaming services I have at the mallor mansion, because I don't watch any of them. I don't I watch YouTube stuff that is free, and then I have you know, I've heard there are these
websites you can watch any sporting event you want. You know, I've heard about this. I would ever be wrong to use those, Danny.
From our be inappropriate from our hoa. We have cable every month, Otherwise we wouldn't pay for it. Used to be Time Warner, now it's Spectrum. We wouldn't pay for that otherwise. So we have that if we want to watch live TV, which comes in handy for watching all the games. But as far as streaming services, all the ones we have, out of all the ones we have, we only really watch three of them, and that's Netflix, Apple TV, and HBO Max.
Yeah my wife has I know, she well, Netflix, she's got Apple TV plus who I think.
We let our Hulu go. Yeah, it seemed like a waste.
The one she doesn't have is the Disney one, which gets that's problematic when when the nieces and nephews come over to the house.
Oh yeah, how do you watch the Taylor Swift concert.
They want to watch the Disney stuff and we don't. That's the one we don't have. Well that's the one I want. Well, we don't have that. We have everyone else, you know, watch the cartoons over you. No, no, I want that, you know. And it was funny because my my cousin was in town, stayed the whole week with his six year old son, and his kid just watched the most disgusting YouTube shorts, you know, those short little clips on YouTube. Yeah, my god, what a freaking what a poop show? That is my god.
Yeah, that's what our thirteen year old girl watches. We are all getting dumber just being in the room.
We are, We are getting dumber, my god, idiot. Anyway, we'll get out on that. Why you know, I had a few more signs before we get out a little bit of time.
So yeah, you don't want to end on a dumb note.
Yeah, definitely not, definitely not. How about this one. According to a new scientific study, americans skip brushing their teeth five times a week. Yeah, five times a week.
I don't know about you, but I can't sleep comfortably if I have not brushed my teeth.
That's part of my routine. I typically am a tooth. It's teeth, toothbrush. It's teeth.
It should be teeth brush. It's very odd for CoA it's toothbrush because he has one tooth.
He's got that cute one big baby.
He's actually got two at the bottom that are through and six more coming in right now on the way. Yeah, so much fun. Yeah, double up the benadryl.
I know. Yeah, not a good time when everything's growing. It doesn't feel doesn't feel that good.
Uh.
Well, this is a political study third rail on my head. It's a third A new study out says, we've got the two leading candidates careful, you got Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and they're really old. So what are the actual odds either one of them will still be alive by the time the twenty twenty nine end of their election or end of their the next term of presidency comes comes around. So there was a study on most Americans believe President Biden, at age eighty one, is way
too old to serve another term. Not as many, but still a fair amount believe that Donald Trump, who's seventy seven, is too old to be president. So they they crunched the numbers, and they based this on percentages of your life expectancy and whatnot. And they went back hundreds of years to track mortality and all this trying to come up with the the odds, and the crunched the numbers, and they were bragging them out this thing and all that, and they went through the death rates of this, that
and the other thing. So they claim that Biden, both Trump and Biden. We'll go with Biden. Biden has a ninety two point nine percent probability of surviving at least to age eighty two, which is like another year. But the odds go down. According to the calculations of this study, they say there is a sixty three point three percent probability that Biden will survive another five years. So that's that opens up a thirty seven percent chance he will not,
but that he'll make it to eighty six. There is a seventy three point six percent probability that Trump will survive to at least age eighty two. When's the last time a president passed away in office? Was it an assassin? Was it Kennedy? Was he the last one? Was he?
I think?
So everyone else, Well, we had Nixon, but he didn't die. He just got kicked out right.
That was Yeah, it was sort of a death.
So Kennedy was the last. That was the last.
Just a political death.
Yeah. He had that famous like the finger thing where you're like wave, very very odd. Anyway, what else do we have in these scientifical world?
Uh, let's here, I checked it. You're right by the way. John F. Kennedy last president to die in office, But.
There was a stretch where a number of presidents in the early part of America died in office.
Roosevelt died in office.
Yeah, it hasn't happened, hasn't happened in a while, happened a while. Here's the study that says, and we get these studies every so often, loneliness is worse for your long term health than obesity, alcoholism, and smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Claim being lonely, So you're better off smoking fifteen cigarettes a day or being an alcohol I find that hard to believe.
The fifteen cigarettes will help you extra help you be lonely. Ain't nobody gonna want to be around you?
You're not kidding? All right? Well that's enough, all right, we'll get out of that and then going on it's Friday today. I am done with the radio show. We did that this morning and look watching the tournament. But you've got more work coming up today.
Right, Yeah, it's gonna be a fun Friday show on the Covino and Rich though with weekend Hobnobbin and we're going to give out some of our stainless steel water bottles, our swiggies and watch and keep the listeners updated on the March Madness game. So should be a fun Friday from two to four pm on the West Side, and that's five to seven pm in Dayton, Ohio.
Yeah, and let me point out that's a great item. I know somebody that hooked me up with one of those Covino and Rich water bottles one. Yeah, I know a few people, you know. I might I might have embezzled it out of somebody, But pretty good. Anyway, have a great day today, enjoyed the tournament. Thank you. We have new podcast all weekend long at the Mailbag on Sunday tomorrow, tales from behind the Microphone that you'll only
hear on this podcast. So have a great day and we'll get you tomorrow later.
Skater gotta murder. I gotta go,