Kabooms.
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 gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, the Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
In the a everywhere, even on New Year's Eve, as we say bye bye to twenty twenty three. It is the Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio. Because five nights a week for me on the overnight, five days a week for Danny with his buddy's Cavino and Rich clearly not enough. So we unite together form Voltron on the weekends. And this is our third pod of the weekend. We had the podcast which was very sporty back on Friday, very sporty podcast on Friday, Danny a lot.
Yeah, that's kind of been our new thing, Like Fridays is sports related, and the rest of the weekend we play grab ass.
Yeah, we just know o nuts. It is the end of twenty twenty three, and I don't know that I need to do my normal rant that I do not make. I do not make New Year's resolutions.
Neither do I. That stuff is so stupid.
Yeah, I look at it like as Bill Belichick back when he was a respected member of the coaching fraternity. Belichick would say, like the halftime adjustment thing, and other people have said Peyton Manning has said this as well. I don't really I'm not very fond of Peyton Manning, but the halftime adjustments is bullshoy. It's nonsense, right. It's like you go to halftime, you take a whiz, maybe you put a new jersey on, and you have some orange slices, some gatorade, and you run back out in
the field. You're not making halftime adjustments. And as Belichick likes to say, if you see a problem in the middle of the first quarter, you fix the problem. You don't wait till halftime, you know, So, all right, we're gonna play the entire rest of the first quarter, the entire second quarter, but then at halftime we're going to make adjustments. It's one of those things that in sports just gets repeated and people people just mindlessly repeat it, like right.
Like stay away from the gym. How many weeks in ben do most people last when they go there?
This week today's obviously New Year's Eve, so tomorrow the gyms are closed, but starting January second, the gym will be back, and then by February first, it'll be half empty. It's just the way it goes. But it's it's a halftime adjustment. It's one of those things Peyton Manning famously said a couple of years ago. It's just a myth. It's an absolute myth. And I put it in that same category as like momentum, right, I don't need to get started on that ran again, there is no such
thing as momentum in sports. I do not believe in that. But I don't need to go down that road. But anyway, I just want to. I don't do the New Year's Eve.
It feels like it's for suckers.
And also, you know, not to rain on anybody's New Year's parade, but going out on New Year's Eve is kind of a sucker's bet also because you way overpay for everything, and usually it's elbow to elbow with other people, and it's hard to have a fun time like that with spending so much money for you know, lots of germs around you.
I read this week and it's on the internet, So who knows if it's true or not that it is the most expensive night to go out in America, that people spend the most money all year on just as a night out on New Year's Eve, Because as you said, it's price gouging. It's like it's like getting a hotel room after a hurricane or getting gasoline after a flood.
You know, it's like a fifteen dollars water bottle.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I saw somebody sent me a link to some hotel in Miami where a guy ordered a cup of coffee and a couple of waters, and it was like sixty seven dollars. What the hell's in the water?
It was in the coffee, vodka in that water.
Yeah, And we don't do the list thing, you know, I don't know believe in the list. But as far as Big Ben's Big Board, much different, much different, right, as you know, right, we're not moving mountains here, we're not shifting the balance of power. We're just doing a little podcast. But as far as the year, looking back at the things that stood out, is there any any one thing, Like the Rangers winning the World Series was pretty wonky in baseball. The Dodgers meekly going out and just sucker.
But then they redeemed themselves getting Otani.
Oh, they did win the offseason championship, so the balance of power. They continue to have the greatest roster in baseball, and they are certainly traveling down the Dodgers the yellow brick road.
For me, the highlight of twenty twenty three was the firing of one Josh McDaniels.
I had a feeling, you're gonna say that, Yeah, I buy.
Josh hello twenty twenty four because Antonio Pierce imagined Ben had he been hired or at least interim hired, three games earlier, the Raiders wouldn't be trying to squeak into the playoffs. I think AP would have had them already squarely lined up for the wild card.
Yeah, it's well, you know he's done well, but that's also a miss. I want to be no gloomy gus here, Danny. But they did also lose a three nothing game to the Vikings.
Competitive game with both defenses. Both offenses sucked.
Compared to Josh McDaniels, he is a mastermind, Antonio.
Piers, Yes, you said it.
And how long was I going to have to sit there on Sundays and look at the camera go on Josh McDaniel's constipated looking face.
It was hard. It was hard sledding.
Raider fans wanted that guy gone a year before that, and he had barely been there then, I mean didn't want him hired in the first place.
So when that happened, man, it was like an early Christmas.
And then Antonio Pierce doing what he did and the Raiders scoring sixty three points was another Christmas. And then the final Christmas gift was trouncing the Chiefs, the defense scoring two touchdowns in seven secs and watching Kelsey throw his helmet, Patrick Mahomes crying to his O line on
the sideline. Then it was a beautiful thing because the Chiefs have rubbed it in with their victories against the Raiders often and so to see those merry go round Chiefs lose to the Raiders on Christmas Day, that was a beautiful twenty twenty three happening.
And Antonio Peers is in the Dan Campbell, I guess I don't think quilt's the right word but because like when I remember Antonio Pierce took over and the Raiders, remember they won the first game. I think they played the Giants. If I remember the Jets in one of the New York teams and they won, and they were smoking cigars in the locker room.
That's right, Yeah, Max Crosby, Yeah yeah.
I had a team attendant go out and get cigars and put one in each locker prior to the game that confident that ap would lead them to a victory over for the Giants.
Yeah, that's the kind of stuff. If it doesn't work out, it's like, oh, this guy's a clown. Dan Campbell, people goofed on him because the kneecap thing with the Lions one of the visions, So that's something, it's not nothing. And the other things that stand out on Big Ben's big board the downfall, the trap door opening up for the Patriots as they have fallen in to an over abundance of bad bacteria. They've played like smelly farts all year.
My Rams, who were supposed to be a total dumpster fire with a roster filled with a couple of star players, surrounded by flotsam and jetsam, a bunch of bits and odd ends and handy downs and second hand players mostly useless. And yet the Rams are for the moment. We'll see what happens today. But the Rams at the moment we're talking, they put the Giants today, so they should win that game. But you'd think with Tommy Cutt it's benched for Tyrod Taylor.
But either way, the Rams have found a couple of ball plays. And so I expected this to be a miserable team that was just going to suck, and they don't suck like they're not. You know, they played pretty well the last couple of months. Last month and a half, they played very well.
So you can ram it into the New Year all night.
You can ram it all night, and many people apparently will. I'm told here on New Year's Eve you can ram it all k me and ram it all night. But that's a different topic of conversation. We have the mail bag. You want to get into that right now? Are you ready for the mail bag?
Yeah, let's go. Last one of the year.
It's bag. I said, we will not do another mail bag on this show all year till next week and then we'll do a new week. But anyway, here yeah, first one off, Freigster writes in from Parts Unknown, didn't not say where he's from. He says, Ben and Danny, how long does how low? How low? How low does the temperature have to go in Socow for you to put on a sweater or a coat? He says, thank you for doing the show here over the holidays. It
is much appreciated. Well, thank you, Craigster. So we have this thin California blood Danny, right, is that what we have here because we're used to the not it's not like Miami weather, but it's you know, usually it's around seventy five degrees give or take. It's hotter in the summer, closer to ninety five degrees most days, but mostly it's in the seventies.
I was only really put on big jackets when it's raining a lot. When it's cold and raining, that's when we'll take out a real jacket because I don't know about you, but really I have like wind breakers and really thin jackets.
Yeah.
I have a couple of winter coats because of my travels and over the years where I've had to go to the East Coast in the winter, but that I don't they're like in the back of a closet. You know, it's like they're buried, like I'd have to search for them to find them.
It's that kind of And it's what it gets to be around what forty.
Yeah, I would say in anything under forty five. And it does actually get down into the thirties occasionally at night, depending on the January February, it'll get get pretty cold. So it was very foggy this week in the middle of the night. Most people probably didn't notice it because they were sleeping, but I was driving and.
It was Oh I drove in that to the Dan Patrick show. There there was a little bit of pea soup fog going on.
Yeah, that's not the greatest to drive it. That's a little tough. That's a little or thank you craigster Mike in North Hollerton, right, since that has a happy Kwanza, Ben and Dan and g and the guys. I hope Santa paid you both a visit back on Christmas, because the Big Guy sure came through for me this year. Well I'm g I'm glad the Big Guy too. Curious Is there any point is there?
He gave me a baby?
Yeah? Hello, Hello? Is there any point in going, well, he didn't have the baby, but my wife I would hope not. Is there any point that in going all out on presents for a baby's first Christmas? Or should you wait until they're a little older? Can a zero equal even appreciate presence?
I like this, Ben, because there are experts who point out that baby's mind start collecting happy or sad memories immediately. So this whole myth of oh, you should wait until till the kid is old enough to remember this before you do this, that or the other, that's a bunch of bullshit. You're supposed to put a baby, an infant, or a toddler in really good, happy situations and travels
as soon as you can. You know, you hear that a lot like I'm not going to do this or that until the kid is old enough to remember.
So I have read a little bit about this, and as I understand it, I think you're referencing what many of us have referenced, the Sigmund Freud term childhood amnesia. Yeah, like, and I don't remember things before I think my first memory was I was around five or six. I don't really remember anything before that. But it's one of those weird things where it's like your brain resets. For some people it might be at three years old. For some people it might be like me five or six, or
maybe it's even later than that. But all that crap gets filed away, even it's in your subconscience. Yes, yeah, yeah, so you're the.
Earliest file folder in your brain, even though you can't go back and necessarily access it when you want to. For me, it's crazy because I have memories of things that happened when I was like two, two and a half years old, and my mom is like, how in the world do you remember that? And I tell my older brother things were like, I'm like, you don't remember this. You don't remember that. He's like, how the hell do
you remember that? He's like you his first memories are from like preschool and kindergarten.
Yeah, I don't. I don't remember anything before that. I've seen photos, so I kind of like I could.
Throw I was there.
I mean, I obviously was there, but I don't really remember. So so those infant ears.
Well, also, when I was two, my mom stabbed my dad, so it was hard to forget traumatic incidents like that.
It's quite the Thanksgiving dinner. Mike also says, Ben, I hear Brian Only's choice for best man has been narrowed down to you and me. Good luck and may the best man get chosen. Well, I think it's going to be you, Fergy. Somebody sent me a message that I thought that was an April fool's.
Joke that not Fergie, did you mean Corgy. I'm sure the Corgi is going to be the best man.
Oh my god, what a wedding that will be. What a wedding that is.
Going to be like dog day at the ballpark.
Oh my god, are they going to be in his and hers UCLA year at that event?
Like gotta be a whole lot of dogs humping at that wedding reception?
Oh?
Who let the dogs out? Who let the dogs out?
All right?
Next up on the mailbag, Jeff in Maine rights and he says, Hey, guys, thank you for entertaining me. Ben, I've been listening for all of your twenty plus years. Way back to you doing weekend overnights entertaining me delivering newspapers here in central Maine. Thanks guy, he's still doing it?
Is that str twenty years of you?
I dare you well Jeff, thank you very much. I was in your fine state, although I'm told I wasn't really in your state because I was only in Portland, Maine, but I bubbed out. I did not get a chance
to meet you when I was there. But hopefully, if things go well we get another season of Benny Versus the Penny, I might make my way back to the great state of Maine, and maybe this time I will drive up a little further to get to the heart and soul where the real people live in the state of Maine and experience the moose and the wild bears and all that to get the full experience. But Jeff, thank you for listening. I do I appreciate it. I
hope you have a great celebration. Here is this is New Year's Eve, James writes in from so Kelly says, what player hit? Oh see this is like this is a sports nerd question, Danny, He says, what player hit the second most home runs during the nineteen fifties and hit at least twenty each season from nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty nine. From James, I don't know.
Do you know that I had his baseball card my uncle gave it to me. It was an old one, rusty.
Rusty, rusty knots Is that what you.
Right? Yeah?
What do you want?
I don't know.
I have no idea. Willie Mays, who the hell knows? I have no I I had to be Willy May's I would think. Actually, right, Willie Mays played. I don't know that he played all of the fifties, though I think he missed the year.
Pretty sure it was Bob Horner Horny, good old horny back in the day.
So James bat job by you Fred in Spring Texas? Right, since says greeting guys, can you share with the class any presence that you either gave or received over the holidays? Yeah? So I'm of the age don't get don't get presents really anymore, not not really presents. I just I need stuff.
I buy it.
I have money, not much, but I have some. So if I need something during the it's much like halftime adjustments we talked about. I don't wait till the holiday to get something. But a lot of people were kind of a family gave like they want to get me fat again, so they gave candy and stuff like that, which I already make.
So I don't.
I don't really need it. There are some holiday gifts which I still have not I'm very late, Dandy. I have a little something for you, and I have not been able to give it to you because I keep forgetting. I worked only a couple days last week and did not bring the goods.
But I will.
I will make sure I do that, but not too much. I think I'm past Fred the age. I get a lot of cool stuff. Anything great for you, Danny, anything wonderful there?
Well, for Christmas we did the trip to Disneyland.
We did do stockings for the kids, and I gave one to my better half in there was. I gave her a gift that made her cry. That's when you know you're doing good. There's this jewelry company. You upload a digital photo and they cut it out with sterling silver. Looks just like the picture. So I sent in a picture of baby CoA and the jewelry came back to me. It's dependent on a necklace in it's Coa's face.
Wow, there's a face there a fan.
Wow.
That's cool. Well, thank you, Fred, you're there every week. We appreciate that. Alf from the Witness Protection Program right since says Ben, do you have a good relationship with these suits over there at NBC and are they very litigious? The reason I ask is that my wife just got me the greatest gift ever, second only to the birthday cameo that my daughter got me from a radio gas bag a couple of years ago.
Howard stern On cameo, I dare you.
I'm afraid that someone in the knoll over there at NBC may have my address now because of said gift and might want to put the kebash on the whole ALF the Alien Opiner bit due to legal reasons. If you don't hear from me again, you'll know why. Peace and love possibly the Alien Opiner formerly known as ALF.
It's funny you bring that up out because I have been wandering the hallways of the NBC studios there the place we do Betty versus the Penny from there, the West Coast Hub, and I've yet to find an ALF poster. I was trying to find one because I thought I'll take a picture for at He Loves Out, and I've not found. What I found there's like a Cheers poster. All these old NBA NBC shows from back in the day is Howard Stern on cameo. God, No, there's no
way he doesn't. He barely shows up to his satellite show.
Why would he do?
No chance?
Yeah, how much would he charge for a cameo if he was on there?
You know who?
I bet you who's on there is like the whack pack guys from the Stern Show are on there.
They're the ones that like, yeah, the rest of the crew, yeah.
And the old guys like I bet Stuttering John's on there probably. I bet you can get a stuttering John.
Yeah, that's a good call. Yeah.
Or I bet you even Baba Booie's not on there, Gary Dellabody, he's made a ton of money.
I bet you he's It was a good deal. I saw you on there. Yours is reasonably priced, and I know you put your all your effort into it.
I got in trouble. I got in trouble with Cameo because I was doing like mini monologues. I was doing like five or six seven minute monologues, and the people of Cameo sent me a message like, what the what the fuck are you doing? These are supposed to be one minute video messages. We don't have the bandwidth for you to do ten.
Minutes for one lap dances and.
I was like, I felt guilty because like people were paying, you know, and I'm like, I feel bad these people paying. I want to get when their money's worth. And then yeah, I am such a radio loser. Barry from South Carolina rights in. He says, yo yo Ma, Benny and Danny G can you tell me the origins? He says, how you guys came up with the term golden ticket for a prize on your games where you've you've you've asked the pigage? Because I believe there was a guy and
I don't remember his name. I think he works with Colvino and rich Now and does a weekend podcast. It's pretty popular that may or may not have been the one that originated that, but I forget, you know, my memory is not that good at this point, Danny.
So the way it came about was one night off the air, I was talking to Real Talk and he told me, you know what would be cool? He said, uh, if there was like a way to get to the front of the line because I'm sick of being on hold. And I thought about it, and I'm like, man, that's a good idea, maybe we can do like an incentive program to get to the front of the line. And I thought about, you know, Willie Wanka and the Golden Ticket, and I was like, that is the ticket.
Yeah.
I remember typing it out, a one page explanation of how it would work, and I remember giving it to you and Coop, and Coop was kind of like, yeah, whatever, and you thought it was a good idea. And I found that little jingle from the movie and the rest is history.
No, I've never go yeah, well most things I give coopies like whatever, you know, but that's just you know, just how he's why. So it's yeah, so Barry Danny g is the one that came up with the Golden Ticket, which we still use today. This next one did they did not sign their name. I did not sign their name. So from unknown lists automous, yes, anonymous, right, since it is Ben and Danny G. I would I have been slacking? Oh this, I think there's our buddy from Wisconsin. I
think Nick and Wisconscious. I have been slacking the last few months. So I think twenty twenty four I will be I will have to do better. So I have a would you rather would you rather have your tooth accidentally knocked out or you your fingernail accidentally ripped off.
Oh, well, you've had a toenail ripped off.
I have had multiple toenails ripped off. I have had a tooth randomly disappear. I gotta tell you, as bad as it as bad as it feels to lose a fingernail or a toenail, I would rather have that than the teeth.
Yeah, because anybody who's had toothaches or emergencies with their teeth knows that pain because it.
Is part of your nervous system.
Oh, it's terrible. I had emergency medical I had emergency medical surgery.
Was it this year?
I guess was last year? And yeah, I remember it was a nightmare. And I've lost toenails and it hurts like an m effort. But they will go back, and there's stuff you can put on it so it doesn't.
Hurt that much like a lizard's tail.
Yeah, the tooth thing, I'm told they don't grow back. I'm told they don't grow back. So yeah, I think we're in agreement on that fingernail. All right, last one, we'll get out on this. Kevin in Kansas, Yes, right, sin, he says. Dear Ben and Danny G says, First, thanks for making twenty twenty three the year of the best podcast duo out there. Well, thank you, Kevin. Kevin's no longer teaching, He's retired, right, he still listens to the podcast,
good friend, he says. Secondly, what do you consider more interesting artwork? Dogs playing poker or the Mona Lisa.
Come on, you know, dogs playing poker is the shit my very first bedroom, my mom was a single parent at the time, with me and my older brother, and on our bedroom wall she had dogs playing cards, all right, and I will never forget that picture that was hanging up in our BEDROOMFF.
Yeah, so I reference the Mona Lisa because people know of the Mona Lisa. If I talk about a great performance, I'll say, Hey, the Mona Lisa and all that. But yeah, yeah, it's a dog explain poker? Or The one that still fascinates me to this day is the photo. It's I consider it art. Have you seen I'm sure I think we've talked about it that the photo of the the people eating lunch on a on a skyscraper on like a beam. Hey for Manhattan.
I actually have a framed copy of that.
I love that photo.
I saw that framed and I'm like, I gotta have that.
And you know those purchases where you're like, it's a lot, but I kind of grabbed that. I gotta get it because I don't think I'm gonna see that again. That's that's one of the pieces of art that I own.
Yeah, that photo is almost one hundred years olds from the nineteen early nineteen thirties. I read somewhere that it was for like a marketing campaign or something like that, that that's they were posing. Yeah, yeah, I did know that.
I thought it was catching them randomly while they were on their lunch break.
No, no, I think it was to promote something that it was not. They didn't just go.
But still, yeah, it's still a cool ass picture.
It is unreal, like they're just hanging out. One guy's smoking, Yeah, guys of smoking. They don't have a couple guys don't have their shirts on. You know, they weren't old.
They got those old school lunch boxes.
Oh yeah, that's great, man, that is just a wonderful. That is amazing to me. I know you didn't ask about that, Kevin, but so what listen have a wonderful, safe, New Year's Eve. I will be not in the audio dojo the next couple of nights, but we will be back loud and proud on January. I believe January first into the second, January first into the second.
I believe Tuesday. Yes, FSR staff returns. Yeah, Tuesday night, I'll be back, and we'll be back for the long haul. And I don't think I have any more days away planned. You never know what's gonna pop up, but that's that's what we have. And I assume you'll be back on Tuesday as well, Danny, Is that is that right?
Yeah, Tuesday afternoon, we'll be back Kevin on Rich in our usual five to seven pm East Coast time spot.
Now it's dandy, all right, listen, have a wonderful, wonderful New Year's Eve. Thank you for supporting the show and following the show all year and all the years that we've been doing this. And we'll have brand new shows starting soon here as we flipped the calendar. We'll talk to you next time.
Thank you for such an amazing year. There's no question Asta pasta got a murder.
I gotta go, Hey, hey, hey, let you go everything Eddie touches turns to ash. You need to put them in this place. I'll tell you another thing then, and you can put I'll put this on my mama, and you can. You can make a note of this and write it down. This may be my last call I'll ever make it to Eddie dropped the gin, and I'll tell you what I am floor. All Patriots, fans, all New English fans, all fans of the NFL, to rise against Eddie Garcia and stand with real talk against this issue.
How about shut up, go to hell, King Eddie.
Boo boo boo boo boo.
Back up, back up, get jack up, check up,