The Fifth Hour: Mailbag Fun

of March all about out the mail bag. But before we get to the mailbag, we have to celebrate National Landline Telephone Day because today is National Landline Telephone Day, a big day's At one point, the phone company's made so much money off those landline phones, right, that was how they made their money. Yes, how many people have landline phones? I don't have a landline? No, do you does your does your mom have a We.

But as you've become more famous and recognized, Kevin says, have you ever had to sneak out of someplace to avoid your fans or do you find yourself planning a quick escape route when you go out in public. Well, I'm flattered, Kevin that you think the overnight radio guy has to is being treated like Taylor Swift. I'm I'm flattered that that that is the case. But yeah, fortunately I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good in that department. Although I do love that quote, and I've used this quite

a bit. It's an old Danny Kay quote. It's old actor about sunglasses, and it says, the definition of a celebrity is one who works their entire life to be famous, to be known, and then goes through backstreets wearing dark glasses to avoid anyone recognizing them. Right, That's pretty much. But that's that's almost a dated quote because it's like in the TikTok social media world, I don't see a lot of people.

I had a Mallard meet and greet. We did it at the Cask and Flagging, which is to paint the picture, Alex, it's this really old bark is everything in Boston's Old right across from the historic Finway poc oh poc where the Red Sox play, and we had a great turnout. We had people from all over the New England States. David from Winter Park, Florida, I drove up from Florida. Wow,

for a two hour meet and greet. We had a guy from Toronto that was there, but one of the gentlemen who was a little over the top, bombastic and in your face. And I liked the guy, but he's he's a character. Wayne from Southey, Okay, Wayne, typical stereotype guy from Southeye, Wayne, you know, just a playful, in your face kind of guy. Southee is where Whitey Bulger's from, the famous Mobster. We talked about Mobster for this weekend. Whitey Bulger from south Man. Wayne's not the mob but

he's just a typical Boston guy. And he hadn't he hadn't had a drink in seven years, the famous sound by I hadn't had a drink in seven years. I did it for Mallor And so he starts drinking and buying me drinks and he's getting upset. I'm not drinking enough because I'm trying to socialize. I'm an introvert, as you know, and I'm trying to go out there and I'm not a blabber mouth, but I'm trying to be polite and people. People took time out of their lives to come say hello to me. It's kind of a

cool thing, you know. I feel like that's a big thing. The most important thing we have is our time, and so for somebody to do that, it's a very important thing. So I try to be nice and hello and greet people. So Wayne, you know, he thought me and him were now we were best friends, you know, because we've we've had beers and we we were just buddies, you know, from the radio. And it was just it was just craziness.

And so anyway, as the night went on, the event was kind of winding down from my end my commitment to be there. I had said I was going to be there X amount of time, and we were getting close to the end of the time and I was going to remain for a little bit because there were still people there that wanted to hang out. And I was like, all right, that's fine. And you know, I'm not the party guy. But Wayne's like, hey, I got

a night, let's go bar hopping. He wanted, and he thought he was going to take me, right, I put my my my goodie bag or maybe that's my my my briefcase, whatever I had, and we just go bar hopping, you know, that party of the night away, right, And so he's got this whole plant. Then it's like him, me and a couple of the other listeners that were there, Blind Scott, there was the guy from Toronto, this couple from Maine, and so we were all gonna go borropping,

and so Wayne, I'll never forget it. It's a funny, funny thing, Alex. So Wayne says, hold on, I gotta go to the bathroom, right, Okay, So he goes to the back where the bathroom is. The cask and Flagging actually was kind of in the middle, but we were in the front and so it looked like the back. And so he goes to the bathroom and then I had this epiphany. I was like, this is my chance, this is my jail. So I grabbed a couple of the listeners. I said, let's get out of here before

before Wayne. Wayne gets out of the bathroom, and we we took off We didn't even know where we were going. We just like started walking. Amazing. We had blind Scott was leading us, uh you know, blind guy leading us. Smart. Yeah, yeah, we didn't know. We had a guy from Toronto, a couple from Maine. You know, they don't know the geography of bo and so we we started walking around. We actually went down. It was funny. We went to a hotel.

This guy, Vinnie, a friend who was a listener. He told me the hotel he was working out in Boston. So we walked. We saw the sign on you know, skyscraper, big hotel had the name of the hotels, like a Marriott or whatever. So we walked down to the hotel and hung out with Vinnie for a little bit. So it was an interesting night. But that's the only time I've had to really get out of anywhere, and I

didn't necessarily have to get out of there. But yeah, I'm not planning to go through kitchens like show Imagio when I was when I was younger, trying to get his autograph and he stuck through the kitchen at a five star hotel in San Diego. Now you're a TikTok guy, You're a big social media influence. Yes, and have you ever had to sneak out of anywhere? Maybe he didn't have money for the bill.

we're getting invited. I always had the recognition. People knew my content, the show, they loved my stuff. So everybody was really cool. We had great times. We would go to karaoke out in Texas. We were singing, dancing and drinking. It's like soju. I don't know if you ever had soju ben, but be careful. That stuff is deadly. It tastes like a Capri sun, but it'll get you completely

fucked up, so just be careful about it. And so I never had issues, right, but then when I started doing SEMPI and started em seeing these events and being the host and hosting these cosplay events. The anime community has a lot of interesting people. They're all full of love, but a lot of them are more introverted and just not sociably acceptable. You could say a lot of them smell that's like a big standard in his like deodoran stuff.

So I've never had a weird situation where I've ever had to like duck out or go to a bathroom or hide. But there have been situations where I'll get so caught up with these combos with people because they love my stuff that it actually like almost makes me late to go to the next stage or something. So I'd be like, oh, yeah, like come over here and I'll introduce them to. What I would do is I call it the pawnoff. So I would go to a booth where I knew some of the vendors and they had great stuff.

It's like a giant convention area every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and it's like over two hundred vendors. They sell trading cards, anime collectibles, sports cards, you name it. It's like a giant place that's like a little mini convention. And so what we would do is every time we would set up a meet and greet, we would set it up

there because then at least it's a public setting. We're all there enjoying ourselves and then say if it was weird or if somebody was just a little bit off or whatever it is, it was really easy to leave because we'd be like, all right, guys, we had to go to record a podcast or some content or anything. So we would set it up to have an easy out. But thankfully, again, I never had to do a Taylor Swift or duck you you know, in a kitchen or something like that.

Nick in Wisconsin rights and says, hey, Ben and Alex when you are traveling, do you rent a car or use uber to get around? Also, Ben, when is there going to be a Benny Award for the Fifth Hour contributor of the year. Oh, that's a great point, Nick, And that is an oversight. We have not had any Contributor of the Year for the Fifth Hour. We'll have to add that next year. I think that's a great idea that's a bad job by the Blue Ribbon Panel.

As far as traveling, yeah, we normally normally rant a car. What I like to do is rent a car and drive around a region and kind of soak it all in. Like I've I've done. I've driven through Pennsylvania from Philly to Pittsburgh, drove up to Buffalo, down to New York. I've driven all the New England states. I've driven around Wisconsin and all the way through Wisconsin up to Green Bay down to Kenosha, Chicago. I got to me, that's a lot of fun. I love just exploring places I

haven't been. So you can't really do that in an uber. So you got to have a rental car, right, And they're very expensive and it's a pain in the ass, and but yeah, I prefer a car. What about you when you've traveled a bunch recently.

what's a good place to go, maybe just wander around. And I've always been very intrinsically like surprised with how open these people are. They're always super pumped to talk about their place they live and where they know. And sometimes they even tell me like, yeah, just shoot me a text, and I like, I'll bring you somewhere.

the same, you know, No, they're not. The things are different about the cities. And you know, I've been to Indianapolis and it's different than you know, Detroit or whatever. So anyway, what's next, Mike in Fullerton? Right since says Knetschiwa Ben and Alex. My question is more in Ben's wheelhouse this weekend. But feel free to pitch that in Alex if you have any ad uh And Mike says I, I'd like you guys to settle the subs versus dubs

debate in the anime community once and for all. Should all anime be watched in its original language with subtitles or is it okay to watch it dubbed into English? Personally, I watch a mix of both. Well, Mike, you've turned to the right guy. I am missing your anime. Okay.

to you. So, from my aspects, and I've seen plenty of sub and dub sub voice actors are just more integrated with the characters and truly become the role, whereas a lot of these English voice actors they're a always trying to basically create their own persona and make it them, which they shouldn't do. That's what's the difference between like method acting and relacting, etc. That's why there's so many different varieties of it. So I can just say this

in the most distinguisha ways. If you really want the experience, you want to increase your reading ability, you want to really indulge yourself into the culture and experience the show as it should be. And to see how they get so involved so descriptive. I mean, shoot, there's a new show out right now that's taking over the world called Solo Leveling. It's airing every Saturday. The voice actor had to go to the hospital after episode two because he

was bleeding. His voice was literally coughing off of blood because of how involved he got into the scene, and it was pretty horrific and it was crazy to see. So for me, I can see when somebody else tries to do their twist on something else, it's never the same. And I do believe that people can enjoy DUB. It's still a great watch. Some people don't like to read like we just mentioned, and I think it is a good experience. But if you want to get it for

what it is, it's always sub. It's superior. It's way better. But there aren't shows that I preferred in DUB, so I would be lying to say that you shouldn't watch it in your preference. It's just Sub is superior in my opinion.

But I want to go back to California, but to the southern part, like La and all that. So you both live in southern California. What would you guys recommend doing and seeing when I get out there with the wife. So Ryan is asking for some recommendations here, okay, and let's see what the beach is.

important in Malibu, a lot of traffic. I don't recommend that the work your way, work your way down and all the way down to the beautiful beaches in Orange County, Hunting Beach and Newport Beach, which is amazing, just just absolutely absolutely great there. So yeah, there's there's a bunch of wonderful beaches, and then it's sort as like the restaurants and stuff like that. I would avoid the tourist places. Yes,

I don't know what your favorite food is, Ryan. We do have the number one pastrami sandwich if you're into that kind of thing. And Langer's Delhi in LA which is really good, some great Mexican food here. And there's obviously the tourist traps, but I don't think the tourist traps are the spots. They're just well too much. You know.

of that stuff. I used to go to the Brady Bunch House all the time, for example, because I'm old and it's actually not far away from where our studios are, so that was one of my spots. You know, the Ghostbusters fire Station is actually in skid row in La. Yeah. Yeah, the Ghostbusters fire Station. So if you want to get shanked, you can go down there with your wife and look at where the Ghostbusters fire station is. Fun time. Yeah. Ian in New Mexico writes in he says, hey, Ben

and Alex, what acress? What actress from your youth made you first start paying attention to the ladies? He says, I'll start for him. Ian says Linda Carter, especially when I found my dad's Playboy with her. That really made some things pop there for ian back in the day safe to say, yeah, I don't know if there was like one. I was like a teenager. I guess when I've reference is Pam Anderson. There were there were, there were women before before her that moved the needle. Sure

shall we say, but what about you? You're younger than me any any moment there, Alex were just kind of connected. You're like, this is something I could be into here.

and do something to impress the like. I just remember watching Hillary Duff in the way she carried herself, how she articulated herself, and it was just so consuming because from a persona of watching like a girl be an actress. It was just so cool to see this beautiful woman doing all these different type of charactures and stuff. And then also Hannah Montana with Miley Cyrus, but she didn't turn out great at all. So thank god I don't have any you know, interest in her anymore, because that

was woof. She definitely went. She came in like a wrecking ball. Ben, Let's just say that.

feel better about the people we work with. He says, this guy will jump on sometimes and respond to callers questions or correct them ahead of the host of the of the show. John says, I heard him say to the host, let me take this one.

an unpopular opinion. I think they look like something I would have made in wood shop class if I were trying to make a truck, Yes, in a wood shop class. And yeah, I mean they're they're theyre apparently very well made from what we've read.

Buddhism and Hinduism. And I just love the fact of somebody going in a sense a different direction within modern day standards and so he fine tuned himself so well. The things he would talk about, it just almost resonated with you with thinking to yourself, man, it's nice to know somebody else out there in a sense kind of understood more of what he was and was understanding more

of self. And so it kind of it's crazy because I never really listened to anybody, but as soon as like little things by his trickled into my social media and I just I would sit there and tell myself, I'm like, man, it's it's good to know I'm on the right track, as there was people before me who were also following that kind of same atonement. So it's it's I'm such a fan of his stuff.

Super Tuesday? And also he says, I saw this story that Wall Street is hedging its bets on Don Trump with Joe Biden? Can you put your political political cap on? What does this actually mean? Okay? So I did vote.

I often. Let me rephrase it. So Alex on the radio show, when I we talk about certain point spreads, I would say, go to the gambling market to find out what's going to happen with the free agent who's favored, because they're never that far off because they have skin in the game, Wall Street. If you go behind the scenes here and peel back the onion. Oh yeah, they decide who the president is.

And that's why I like the conversation of politics because to me, I've never been somebody who really is focused on voting for one or the other, because I know the only way you'll really make any type of implemental changes at your local level around you before it gets up to the lobbying and stuff, because that's where I just tell people all the time, like, if you don't know that lobbying exists and lobbyist is actually a thing, I'm pretty almost kind of curious as to how you

think anything really matters at the top scale, et cetera. But to me, all I know is that there's definitely something that's going to happen with all this coming up, and especially with how it's been moving forward. Because number one, just seeing like the fact we only still have in this type of age ben and like social media and influence and insights into just any information, right, how are

we still stuck in a two political system? Blows my mind, Like we're just literally stuck with this dude or this dude, and we literally have a predominant statement always saying, oh, it's the it's the better of the two evils, the better of the worst. It's how are we still at this level? To me, it blows my mind.

like Africa where there's a bunch of different countries. Yes, yes, in America, which would be wild and crazy and all that. But it's like with polity. I have friends of mine. I'm I lean a certain direction. I think you're listening to the podcast, you know which direction I lean politically, And in California they lean the other way. And it's like, oh, I have friends of mine and are like, oh yeah, I even bother vote. Well, nothing lasts forever, you know.

California was the other way and then it went this way. It goes back and forth. Sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes it takes a couple of generations, but it does go back and forth. So anyway, all right, we'll get out on that. Alex, thank you for being here all the weekend. I appreciate it. You're the man my pleasure. Thank you for moving me how can people hear you elsewhere? And I know they hear you with Jason and occasionally chime in there with Rob Parkers, those guys for sure.

If they want to hear your own work, your own podcast, your own Alan Watts like yes, yes.

And if you're still an anime too, or you want to get introduced to culture, cultural entertainment that's outside of the American infrastructure and you know the empire it is, and have something that's more attuned with you know the whole value of just growing up in tradition and culture and just morals and values and especially good just hand drawn stuff that's almost going away with AI. Just look up anime Sempi podcast. I have so much fun. I love doing what I do and I do it just

simply for everybody. Because I haven't sold a single ad or promotion, even though I've had plenty of people who have asked, I don't do it for money. I do it for you guys.