The Fifth Hour: Crossing the Mendoza Line

on in Seattle, it'll be the Rams. We'll ram it all day and more importantly in a ram it all night as they'll take on Seattle in that game. You want my picks? You want my analysis, Yes you do. You know what again, there's only one place you can get my picks for the AFC and NFC Championship games against the Spread, the iconic must see tube that's Benny Versus the Penny. It continues fighting the good fight in

the pigskin world. You can check that out on you Tube streaming on the Benny vs. Penny channel as we together celebrate National Beer Can Appreciation Day in America. Why is that a thing? It's just a thing. You just go with it and that's it. So I started snooping around and I looked at a few things. I do know when I was a kid. One of my memories as a child that we had a neighbor who lived in the house next door, real close and walking through the neighborhood I was growing up. I just ran around

and have phones or anything like that. Just ran around and lived your life. So I remember the neighbor was always working on his car, and then behind the car his name is Rick, and behind Rick's carr in the garage was a can. One can after there was a wall of cans and they were all different colors and it was really cool. I was like, oh, this is pretty neat. You know, this is awesome. This guy collected beer cans and then put them as display items in

his garage. So the beer can debuted in nineteen thirty five, so we're coming up ten years or so, a little less than that away from the one hundredth anniversary of the beer can. It was in Jersey, a brewery called Krueger's released the beer can, and then there was a bit of a delay. There was something that happened. I guess it was World War Two and there was a delay in production. I wonder why. And it wasn't until the nineteen sixties that canned beer became mainstream again. So

it debuted somewhat popular. And then in the nineteen sixties, after the delay because of the war, stuff came back. And in nineteen sixty nine, so fifty seven years ago, the sales of canned beer exceeded the bottle beer for the first time. I was reading that people did not like the can beer or the bottle beer. H yeah, the can beer. They liked the bottle beer. They didn't like the can beer. And they got upset by that. They were like, we like the bottle, we don't need

the can. Like what are you doing? And then eventually people came around to it and said, okay, we're in on that. There's sciences. Of course, doesn't matter whether you believe the science or not. The science is the science. And it takes less time to chill a can of beer than a bottle beer. So if you're really desperate to get a nice, cool beer, you've got to put that in and a can't buy can. However, bottled beer

stays colder longer, so there you go. That's why the koozy was invented, but not Bobkoozy, not Bob Coozy for sure. And in the refrigerator, whether you're at home or supermarket Steve or one of the boys that work at a grocery store, it's much much easier to stack a can of beer. You can't how do you stack a beer bottle? He can't really do that. I cannot do it. And the can beer also great for diplomacy and great to

spread the gospel or the SuDS. The Bruskies US brewershipped millions of cans of beer the soldiers overseas during World War Two. So it's all because of the can. So celebrate appropriately enjoy a nice can of beer on Beer Can Appreciation Day. Now, to get to the meat of the matter, we have the Mendoza line and rickrold As mentioned, we'll start with this.

why we're on at night. A few of the things that have been sent to me probably require a tetanus shot just to read or hear about. However, this week, during what I thought was a rather blah, perfectly ordinary stretch of sports talk radio, one of those quiet, polite lulls before Championship Sunday and the NFL decided to light the fuse, I was reminded of one immutable truth of the modern plugged in world. Nothing travels faster than a soft,

wounded fan base with Wi Fi. Nothing. So the other day I was minding my own business, doing what I always do. I was preparing for the overnight radio show, minding myself in my own thoughts, living my nocturnal existence like a raccoon wearing a headset, and I made one mistake. I dared pop on. Briefly, very briefly, I peaked at the X Machine formerly known as Twitter, which is still the same old madhouse of debauchery, just with a shorter

sign out front. And suddenly, boom, the cavalry had arrived. The cavalry had arrived. Not the real cavalry, of course, mind you, No horses, no safe just a convoy of smartphone warriors, cyber tough guys, and anonymous screen hips. Because nothing tells you that someone's tough when they have a fake name and an anime avatar, all charging in formation

towards me and my mentions. Now, it is funny how trolls claim to seek the truth while hiding in the shadows of the interweb, something that has happened since the web was invented. Now, most of this took place while I was sleeping, at least at the beginning. It has continued the last couple of days, but it was as I was asleep, And it's always a touching detail. Nothing says I am winning at life, like firing off angry messages to a stranger while that stranger is drooling on

a pillow at eleven am. So what was the crime here? Do we have a crime? Well, it's high crimes and misdemeanors. The fine web people at Fox Sports Radio, the company I plausibly work for, posted a clip of my malor monologue from the National Championship Game Indiana getting past the

you In. In that monologue, I had the audacity, the unmitigated gall the nerve, the hootzpa to point out that Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza the Golden Boy, look very ordinary, pedestrian beige, the human version of that terms and conditions page long doll and nobody actually reads it, just kind of click it and move on. So the FFFSR social media team captioned my monologue and they laid out everything right.

There was like a chalk outline one hundred eight Here's what I said, one hundred and eighty six passing yard, zero passing touchdowns, passer rating hovering in the low eighties. I said, it was isn't the stat line of a number one overall pick. The Raiders have the top pick. I said, it looked more like an audition tape for a future backup in the Canadian Football League, where the fields are wider and the dreams go to politely wait right, And so this, it turns out, was a sin sung

loud enough to echo through the eternity of Hoosier's backers. Yeah, you see the radio show, and your beloved gas bag man had crossed the Mendoza line. I had no idea that Fernando Mendoza had already done enough to warrant fanboys

with knee pads. I had no idea. But here we are, somewhere deep in the cornfields of Indiana, as I imagine, message boards began to glow, social media groups sounded, the alarms group chats checked in as well, And suddenly, suddenly, I the begnatta at a six year old's birthday party,

everyone blindfolded swinging away with their Louisville sluggers. That's right, that's right, Except this wasn't kids blindfolded swinging, and I was grown adults hurling insults with the emotional strain of Toddler's denied a juice box, A total conniption fit of the heart. Now you think, and you probably do think this, I mean many do. You might think that this would

upset me, It would bother me. Strangers, people I will never meet in life, unloading, viral, vicious, horrific insults like haymakers and body blows, name calling, status checking, career shaming.

kill you like mercury, the lost souls of the cyber world. Now, the rest of the attacks were just wonderful, just wonderful. I'm glad that you're paying attention. It means that I am doing my job right, you see. That's the thing that is the thing. This is the part of the job they don't put into the shiny brochure it's the chicken soup for the soul. So this is a jolt you don't need a prescription for when you get this

kind of attack. And I loved it at a little more peppin of my staff, a big smile, extra bounce in the laces. It was invigorating. Charlie Sheen once says actor back in the day, he once said that he talked about tiger blood, and he had tiger blood in us. This felt like a deluded but still effective version of tiger blood with the side of ant acid, just a little side. Now, some of the attacks were probably not real. Let's be really realistic here in this is CyberWorld. There's

some bots. Some of them did have all the normal signs of not being real. Some were definitely real human beings who have never met a hobby. They liked more than being just angry online angry birds. Angry birds they don't get out much, don't have any friends. It happens, you know, you're just a shut in. I get it, I get it, and it's good. It's good playground for people that have nothing going on in their lives. Now.

Either way, they all shared a familiar refrain, and I will not do a list, because we don't do lists here. In honor though of Terry in England and Alf the Alien Opiner and ferg Dog. Let's call it Benny's Big Board of Social Media insults. And it never changes. Do you know that? It never changes since I began this job. These are the insults. There's three food groups of insults, three of them. The first one is who is Ben Mahler? Who is Ben Mahler? Who are you? That's why you're

on overnight? Or who's listening at two am? Some version of that. The other one is nobody knows you, which is a version of number one, and nobody cares what you think. I like that one. These are the classics. This is like Stairway to Heaven or a lukewarm hot hot dog you chow down at halftime. These things are time tested, overplayed and never quite satisfying. However, they don't go away. They don't go away. Now here's the part

that these Mama Lukes do not understand. And I say this with the affection of someone who has been in those shoes, because confusion is one of humanity's most reliable traits. Every man, woman and child who was part of that right, all those angry replies, money in my bank account, food on my plate, close on my back. These people, and if you're one of them, welcome. You are participating in the economy of outrage. And you don't even get a receipt.

You don't, don't you're so obtuse. Here's a life lesson. If you truly don't know who the talk show host is and you believe he is beneath you because he works overnight, why are you frothing at the mouth over his opinion? Why are you vibrating with a rage? Yah, that's not dominance, that is surrender. You are such a your pony. You don't grasp reality. You don't sending an insult, all right? Sending insult in this case, to me is akin to paying a guy at a fruit stand for

some strawberries. Right. In this case, you're not even getting strawberries. I am literally, infiguratively paid to give opinions. Four hours of live sports talk radio night on six hundred plus radio stations booming across the Blue Marble. Three hours of podcasting each weekend. Sixty to eighty opinions in mala monologues a week minimum minimum sixty to eighty opinions per week in the malam monologues. It's not my hobby, it's not. In fact, this is a factory. Opinions go in, content

comes out. Think of it like a chapel. It's not a child. It's a kitchen, Benny's bistro. You don't stay in this business. Serving plain oatmeal for breakfast, iceberg let with no dressing for lunch, no salad dressing. I don't eat that, but other people do. And unseasoned tofu with saltine crackers for dinner, capped off with vanilla ice cream that tastes like regret. You need spice, you need flavor, you need the heat, as Johnny Cash the legend, saying

you've got to be hotter than a pepper sprout. And around here we're serving dragon breath peppers. We don't serve tap water. We serve hot sauce. That's what we serve. And so Fernando Mendoza. I don't know Fernando Mendos. I have nothing against Fernando Mendoz. I just call it like I see it. On that night he had football holatosis. It happens. Even good players have games where the breath smells off and the throws don't land. And that's not cruelty,

that's observation. That's the job. And he doesn't look like he's going to be very good in the NFL. That's just based on reality. Unfortunately, the Hoosiers online contingent wacka Doodles cannot handle the truth understandable. I get it. I told I'm not upset with you. I understand most of you still have the price tag stickers attached to your hats and your jerseys and your little trinkets and all the team merch you just bought because nobody ever went

to Indiana football right. For over fifty years, Indiana football has been friends and family only. That was the operation invitation only. Nobody was being invited. Now they've tasted some relevance, and like all sudden success stories, it comes with a thin skin and a hair trigger temper. And so you got the temper, congratulates and again it's okay. It's okay because outrage is the fuel, always has been, always will be. If nobody's mad, nobody's listening, and if nobody's listening, you're

just talking to yourself. You're whisper to the void. You're serving a plain white boiled potato without skin in an empty diner, wondering where it all went wrong? Like what happened? So again, to the cavalry of hoosiers, the convoy, the keyboard commandos, thank you sleep well. All right, I'll be sleeping well, but you sleep well. Make sure your phones

are charged. I'll be here every night, all night, doing what I do, giving opinions, collecting reactions and getting paid for it, and enjoying every last drop of that sweet, nourishing noise because it keeps the lights on. And for that, I thank you, now turning the page. It was just a dinner roll, a harmless, innocent looking dinner roll. So this happened recently, and I was asked to expand on this. I'd mentioned this on the radio show. You might have

heard it, maybe you didn't. So the dinner roll the kind of a food item that exists solely to make life better, like duct tape or that comfortable, soft pair of sweatpants. And yet that role recently betrayed me. So let me explain it for those of you in the back of room. I was enjoying my usual I call it. It's liner, not really dinner, not lunch. It's that sacred hybrid meal that lives in the no man's land between lunch and dinner, usually four thirty ish to five thirty ish.

That is my personal bremina triangle of calories where time disappears. I get to watch, depending on the season, whatever sporting events starting at seven thirty on the East coast of seven o'clock NBA this time of the year, but baseball most of the year. Occasionally football college football that hums in the background on the boob tube as I am multitasking like a octopus heavily caffeinated while preparing for the show. So most of the time it's it's chicken, check that box.

I usually have some rice, check that box. And so on this night, I had the chicken, I had the rice. All I needed was a supporting actor, a flavor enhancer, a role player, and entering now the Hawaiian role. Now, Hawaiian roles are not just bread. They're They're deeper than that. They're the If they were dogs, they'd be labradoodles, right. They just just wonderful, soft, sweet, friendly, universally beloved. I don't know anyone whether you're a carnivore or an evil

vegan that does not love the Hawaiian role. You don't eat a Hawaiian roll so much as you experience the goodness of it. And these particular roles Kings Hawaiian, the savory buttery rolls its says on the label. So they were leftovers from the holiday party seas, which is a time when food enters the mallor mansion and then refuses to leave. It's like that cousin who just needs a few days to get back on their feet and it's like, ah, I won't be any problem, and then three months later

they're still there. So the packaging is a masterclass interception and that is the issue here. So the orange branding if you ever had Kings Hawaiian roles, So the package is it's a plastic bag and then there's a like a paper thing the rolls go on, but it's a plastic bag that wraps it. It's Orange brand and clear plastic top a transparent window. You can see the fluffy happiness.

It's like the zoo and seeing the elephant enclosure or whatever, or the monkey enclosure and you can see through and these delicious savory butter rolls looked perfectly fine through the little peacle. They looked trustworthy. They looked like the bread equivalent of a firm handshake and steady eye contact. Trustworthy. So I did what anyone else, we do it so well. I examined them through the plastic. We're good to go, so without further inspection, because when has bread ever betrayed anyone?

I grabbed one and I took a bite. What happened, Well, yeah, I ended up getting rickrolled. Now not metaphorically, of course, spiritually, Instead of buttery bliss, I was greeted with blue and white mold, a lot of it. Not a little mold, No, no, not a maybe that's a shadow situation. This was an assertive mold, mold with confidence, an aggressive mold, mold that had clearly signed a long term lease and started redecorating. Interesting enough, though it had not popped at the top

of the buttery rolls, and it looked fine. Well, my appetite did not just leave that moment. It packed a bag, ghosted me, and blocked my number. So that was it for my appetite. This was the culinary version of back in the day, clicking what you thought was an interesting article and suddenly hearing never gonna give you up by Rick Astley blasting through your speakers at full volume. You

ecept that occasionally this would happen on the internet. You don't think this is going to happen back in the day, would happen when you're eating roles that you looked at. Right, I thought Bob was gonna get a groll, and I got ambushed in this case by fungus. I got ambushed by fungus, is what I got. And that's what made it hurt the most. Right, that moldy bread is bad enough. Moldy bread that pretends to be a delicious Hawaiian roll

that messes with you. That's psychological warfare, is what that is. And it was the best laid plans of mice and men, except the mice would have taken one look and filed a formal complaint. And I was thinking about this as I was walking into the remote studio today. It was like at former college football coach jimbo Fisher, as he once said, well, according to someone I read on Bible, which means it may or may not be true. Someone writes it, a guy named Slice Brand posts it, and

suddenly everyone runs with it. Of course, in my case it wasn't slice breand it was moldy brand and it ran straight into my mouth. And that's when it hit me. I had been outsmarted by the packaging again, the plastic branding in my own blind optimism, teaming up side by side against me. This time I learned a lesson that I will take with me at least for the next week, and then I'll forget about it. This role was the hyperlink, the hyperlink of big goods. It said one thing and

delivered yet another. It was a trojan horse, if the trojans had carbs and a faint smell of just what have I done? The term rickrolld for those who don't know. I don't think it's around much anymore. For the uninitiated or blissfully offline world, the term rickroll that refers to an Internet prank where you click a link expecting one thing, and again you get Rick Ashley instead. It's the bait and switch, the digital banana peel. And like all great pranks,

it works because of trust. You believe the link, you believe that it's going to work out. I believe that that Hawaiian role was going to be delicious and then surprise, yes, surprise, surprise, surprise. Now the difference is that Rick Ashley won't give you food poisoning, well not. This experience taught me a valuable life lesson again, which I will again think about for a week and then immediately forget and relearn several times before I die. Inspect twice, bite once, trust, but verify,

Look before you leap, measure twice, cut once again. Don't judge a role by its wrapper. You don't do it because sometimes, sometimes in this cold, confusing world, the thing that looks warm, soft and comforting is actually plodding against you. Sometimes the hyperlink is a lie, sometimes the bread is moldy, and sometimes your one meal a day turns into a lifelong memory. You did not ask for Okay, you did not. I did not ask for that, did you. I didn't ask for that that? Hey, I at least I didn't

hum along with the tune. I didn't hum along with that, And so there is there's something there.

on the Friday podcast was the mister American Pipe. But also we said our goodbyes to Rosco the Parrot, one of the great characters in the history of the Ben Malor Show, and went through that whole thing of a jig. So check out that Fifth Hour podcast out the mail bag for you tomorrow if you want to send a message into the mail bag Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. That's Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com.

All letters, no numbers, All letters, no numbers. Have a wonderful, glorious rest of your Saturday, Saturday Saturday, and thank you for suporting the podcast. Eat you next time. Aloha, Yfolation.