Cutbooms.
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to the Clearinghouse of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahller starts right now in the.
Air everywhere The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio.
It is now Saturday.
You can listen whenever you want, obviously, but this is being recorded early in the morning, on the twenty sixth day of July, a Saturday morning, and on this podcast that we hope to cover all the basis, including the big performance last night, the random Mexican wrestler, and a bunch of other stuff in the Malor Palooza postgame extravaganza.
But I thought we would begin since we're doing this the morning after there was a historical performance getting a fair amount of attention from the baseball hard Oh's because in Houston last night somebody named Nick Kurtz of the Athletics. I think that's a baseball team, but not a good one. Nick Kurtz hit not one, not two, not three, but four home runs in one game.
At least pause between his first and last name.
I know, I know, right, you gotta be careful with that.
But anyway, they got the break out the Champagne and Sacramento for these seven A's fans that are left. Rookie Nick Kurtz the newest face of the Athletics. You think, now, Danny, you were an A's fan back when they were in Oakland. You know, you were younger and you go to A's games. You've told the stories here back in the glory days of the A's when they had Ricky Henderson and Jose Canseeko, people like that. And now they've got this Nick Kurtz guy,
the twentieth player in baseball to do it. The part of the story which annoys me and I'm gonna be that guy, Danny is while four home runs, only twenty people have done it in baseball history. There has to be an asterisk on the fourth home run, the fourth home run, that last majestic moonshot by Nick Kurtz of the Athletics.
You know who it came against? Who do you think came against.
Well, do you think it came against Nolan Ryan or you think it came against you know, any other great astro pitch. No, it came off a position player Houston cheating. Asstros had given up, they waved the white flag. I guess the trash cans weren't working in that game last night.
The buzzers must have been broken, so they essentially forfeited at the end of the game, and they sent in some young left fielder I've never heard of who had a faint pulse and you know, one of the you know, lobbing up some sixty eight mile an hour meatball, and you know, it was like a beer league softball situation.
And so he hit his fourth home run.
But you've got you've got to put an assus on that that's not against a.
Big league pitcher. And this is now.
Dave Roberts loves doing this, the Dodgers manager. How many times have the Dodgers either been up by ten runs.
He sends out Kei k Hernandez gl Rojas guys like that.
Yeah, he loves doing that. He loves doing that. And so listen to me, that's a three and a half home run.
Game, the last home run came off of a lollipop pitch like the one you threw in Bakersfield.
Well, no, the pitches that I that's a bad take by you. The pitches that I throw, Danny, are unhittable.
And that is a legitimate that's called an ephis pitch, that's a legitimate pitch that has been proven successful over seventy years in baseball, last seventy.
Years, very successful.
So yeah, yeah, not exactly, Babe Ruth calling a shot last night in in Houston a bit tarnished. We also had a trade. There were a couple of trades. The one I got a couple of emails. I guess i'll address this year so I don't have to talk about it when I come back to work on.
The radio show on Sunday night.
The New York Yankees made a trade yesterday. They got Ryan McMahon, who now I'm actually happy about this, Danny. I was worried that Dodgers were to get Ryan McMahon from the Rockies, so I'm glad.
That he's going to the to the Yankees.
And another player that Brian Cashman has picked up who looks like an All star because the Rockies have to have an All Star and another guy that is just a mirage when he leaves Coors Field, so good luck on that. When he's playing in Denver, Ryan McMahon, he looks like Juan Soto and when he's lead. When he's outside Denver, he plays like Nick Punto, so good luck with that. And if he was a Mexican wrestler, Ryan McMahon outside of Colorado would be l Stinko.
And now he is a New York Yankee.
And there were rumors the Yankees were gonna go out and get O'Neil Cruz, who's got the razzle dazzle.
Even though he's batting like two point fifteen.
Or Gino Suarez of the Diamondbacks, and instead they got Ryan McMahon. Ryan McMahon is who they got, so good defensive player who can't hit Other than that, you know, whoo pee Dando, congratulations.
Way to go, way to go on that.
And what else do I am into the nfl PA story, Danny, I think that's a pretty good story.
That the NFL Players Association.
How many stories have we seen over the last couple of years, these self righteous chest pounding protectors of the players you know, come off as total douchebags. And apparently, if this report is accurate, they have had their hand not just in the cookie jar, they have been elbowed deep in.
The cookie jar.
This is not some little accounting error, if you know where I'm going with this. It's not some just slight misuse.
Of union funds. It's major personal enrichment.
Like this is a massive story, and the FEDS are
now investigating this. And there are some people who scream about player rights and it's not fair, you know, safety protocols, all this stuff, and the union that the same people that preach all that stuff, if this story is right, are siphoning money from the players while they are preaching and they're giving sermons about it's not fair and all this stuff, trying to protect the players, they're out there taking money, which is just outstanding when you think about
all the times we've seen quotes about player empowerment and they want transparency and all this stuff.
And it turns out.
The only thing the union's empowered has been their bank accounts. That they've been powered up on that, and so every time they send out some story ripping the owners. There's a three part docu series with the dramatic violins and the slow motion shots of NFL executives walking around, and yet I don't get the same vitriol for this particular story.
Are you seeing that? I'm not seeing that, Danny. It doesn't seem to.
Be the yin to the yang here that I know. Why that is is we don't really know who the union people are.
I have no idea what these people are.
And we're not getting the sermons about bad optics in the NFL and all that stuff.
But that's a terrible story.
If the players are sending money in and the people running the union are taking that money and shaving a little off the top so they can buy Porsches and BMW's and god only knows what Ben.
We've been hearing about how dirty this union has been for years, and stories about how they're in bed with the league and they're not really there for the players.
Yeah, no, it's it's wild.
I mean, this is over the top, and the fact that the people could go to jail now, so it's just listen. I don't want to hear about the slogans and the hashtags and the rally around the players, the player empowerment speeches when the books are being cooked like a barbecue on the beach in late July, sell me a little. I did want to get to the Mallard Palooza twenty twenty five post game show as advertised. As advertised, Danny, this past week we had the biggest event in overnight sports radio.
We save this for the Saturday special. It's time.
I saw so much traffic on Twitter about this event, and I had fomo because you know, I sleep during those hours, and I was pissed off that I missed everything. I just saw all the reactions.
Well, it was polarizing, Danny. Now we're going in the hot top time machine.
We're gonna go down memory lane looking back at the Malar Paluza twenty twenty five. A spectacle. Now, we have heard from those working the dreaded day shift, like you, Danny, that a lot of people will stay up late, they'll miss work, or go into work late, or you know, sudden they wake up groggy because they stayed up too late to hear the Malor Palooza. And the question that
is often asked was it worth it? And like most events on the Overnight Show, it depends on who you ask, Like I thought this year's mall be I'll be completely transparent here. I thought the twenty twenty five Mallard Palooza was flat. It was like a bottle of PEPSI left open on the counter. There was not enough fizz. There was no real pop there. And it wasn't all terrible like there were things that I loved. Inca terror outstanding judge back from New York there, classically trained musician. I
think it is really good at that. Ohio Al, who's a big part of this podcast, great wonderful. Bennett the comedian Kid stayed up, had his younger sister Valerie take part in his comedy bit Tony from the Bay Area.
Tony's always good.
Just Josh and Jay Scoop absolutely killed it all right.
We had the pig Squeeler, who I believe was on.
When you were doing it, Danny, remember the guy that called he's been around for years.
That's a favorite.
Yeah, it's a fan favorite.
Andre from the Commonwealth brought his dog WILLISFF so.
That was kind of cool.
So we did have an actual canine contestant and that was pretty cool. And to me, that's the kind of act if there's one act that defines what the Ben Mahler Show and the Mallard Palooza should be. It's weird, unexpected authentic, right, weird unexpected authentic, like a man and his dog.
Just barking at.
Three in the morning. You know, That's that's what we're looking for. That's Malard Palooza magic. That's overnight radio with the callers, and it's like the perfect theater of the absurd. However, the end of the d Danny and I do not say this with much joy in my heart. The twenty twenty five Malapluza had way too many peaks and valleys right, way too many valleys, like.
We hit a wall a wall, and.
Doing the retrospective, the post mortem, the autopsy, every want to say it like there's you never know what you're gonna get with these things. I thought there was like a quality control issue. Now I have realized, and this is not meant to offend, but merely an observation that we have a lot of people that listen overnight in the Malad Militia that genuinely believe.
In their heart that they're funny.
They believe they've got amazing material that they should be appearing at the improv. They believe they know how to deliver a punchline. Spoiler alert, they can't. There were comedy routines that felt like they were written on the back of a receipt at a waffle house within the last twenty minutes before the bed like we kept waiting, we kept waiting to laugh, Danny like nothing was.
It at least good bad?
No, no, it wasn't even good bad. It was just bad bad, not even good bad. Like you cannot create comedy in a vacuum. It's almost impossible to be funny without people laughing and reacting. Like even to me, the greatest comedian that I ever saw was a guy named George Carlin.
Old radio guy became a comedian.
George Carlin, if he came back across the Pearly Gates would have struggled with some of these setups. Right and listen, I'm sorry, I'm not sorry. Telling a knock knock joke in a deadpan monotone delivery at four in the morning on Cape cod is not performance Art's. It made me feel, Danny like I had been taken to Was it Alligator Island or Guantanamo Bay or it was like torture.
So enough.
I know everyone thinks they're funny, and you're probably really funny and all that stuff.
But it just doesn't It does not work.
Okay, I downloaded that episode to my Apple page and it's in my cue. I've already been looking forward to hearing it, and now what you just said, instead of driving me away, it makes me want to listen that much more.
Well, good luck. Now that's one problem. Okay, so that's the first problem. The bigger issue now we are going to get to the three headed fire breathing dragon in the room.
Okay.
The big issue here that the overnight show has gotten so popular and we've done so well that the Mallard Palooza has gotten pretty big.
The show's gotten as much as.
An overnight show can get big, and so the Mallard Palooza has become contaminated with what your friend and our former colleague, lay.
Travis, who says the mind virus.
Now, when I say the mind virus, we have the same problem that the NBA Slam Dunk contest has. We have the same problem that the Major League Baseball home run derby hash.
And what is that problem?
It is the it's a slow decline brought on by one very painful truth. Some of our biggest stars in the Malard militia don't want to play ball. They don't want to be part of the Mallard palooza. They've got much lofty status.
Danny, I'm not here to apologize about nothing, big bend.
We listen, Ohio's not a bench guy, and just Josh and Jay scoops of these other guys. But there were a lot of like, where's that guy? I want to see that guy? Like for right now, I'm not gonna name names. You know, I'm not gonna I'm not I'm not gonna name names. But if I was gonna name names, I'd be like, where's weed Man, Hippie, where's Hollering James, Where's Jed?
Who fled? I need Blair in Maine?
How I would even take Marcel in Brooklyn doing food picks, like random food picks like these are for us the show heyl Tani, the Tani not in the home run derby this year. That was a buzzkill. Anthony Edwards and this he's never done the slam dunk contest. I don't believe from the Timberwolves like for us, like we don't have Anthony Edwards or Otani. We've got weed Man, Hippie
and angry Bill. And we were supposed to have Mark, the full name guy, and then he had They couldn't perform because he was gonna blow into a harmonica and then he's like his roommate or whatever's gonna wake up, and so he had to tap out. But at least he called up and said I can't do it. But those are the callers. Again, I didn't name anybody weed Man, hollering, James Jed who fled Blair Marshall.
I didn't name him Danny.
But those are the people that often the other listeners tune in for.
These are the guys that you build the card around.
And it's kind of like you go to a boxing match and you don't have a headliner or you know, or you don't.
Have yeah, you know what. It's like a festival concert, like a Saturday and a Sunday. You had the Saturday performers but not the Sunday headliners.
Yeah, we just were lacking some of that stuff.
And and those are the people that you tune in for and all that stuff, and they a lot we need them to show up and we don't want to hear I do not want to hear about caller burnout or.
I just need to take the year off. It's radio.
It's all you're doing is talking. This is the show that never sleeps. We're always on in the middle of the night. You don't load, manage your phone call, you show up, You deliver, or at least you try. And you can't be ghosting the mal or to lose like it loses some of its soul. Right, that's the recipe. We need characters, we don't need now. There's always there's always room for the open mic amateur, a few of those guys. But you can't have every other performance be
that and Jed crashing his own segment mid call. I would be like, Okay, that's good. You know Jed talking to another crackhead out in the swamp plant of Florida. Uh, you know, weed man hippie asking for rent money, pay we pay gmail me money or whatever.
I would have.
Taken there, and because you know, that's what makes the Malard Polsea sing and it's it's not cringeworthy comedy.
It's not that you know.
Now that said credit where it's due. I thought the music was pretty good. I thought it was pretty good. Ohio Jayscoop, some of these other guys were solid.
So what's next. So I'm looking ahead.
I'm projecting ahead Danny to the Malard Palooz at twenty twenty six, and we clearly need some kind of better filter. And when I was doing the post mortem, when I was doing the autopsy, because of some scheduling issues on my end, we didn't really get a firm date early enough. I think we just have to pick a firm date and stick with it. I think that's part of the problem. There really is no vetting process. I don't think we
can have a vetting process. It's not like you say, well, send in a sample of what you're going to do and then we'll see if you're worthy. It's like we don't have a blue ribbon panel. There's no Malard Tribunal, there's no Tzar of performance that.
There's none of that.
And so we just need some people to bring the heat. We've got to em embress, we've got to embrace the weird.
Well, I feel like a cash prize would also be for the winner.
Well, that's the thing.
I mean, we actually have a prize here, our buddy from Houston, mister Irrigation, has provided another Mallor ring.
I don't know if you were on the show when we last got rings. I don't know.
This is several years back, but big fan of the show and he's got.
You know he was working on a Ben Mallar ring.
Yeah, yeah, he had sent that. Maybe he had left the show by then, and then he's made another one. So this is a second Malord show ring. This is how big a fan and how big a supporter mister Irrigation is. Which I just love Danny because he lives in Houston and I'm not real popular as we've talked about on this show in Houston.
Oh oh, you remember back in the day, I brought him to your show. I introduced him to you and the rest is history. So I'm glad there is a prize. Did it go to Jay Scoop? Well, he made a bunch of rings.
Like the original plan was we were going to send the top four or five people rings.
I guess we'll still probably end up doing that.
Okay, I see that was a.
Really nice thing to do, very generous. We have no budget.
They don't give us anything to give away on the Overnight show. So we need listener It's like public radio. We need listener donations. It's a listener supported broadcast in many ways on the Overnight. So again, looking ahead for the love of Fats from Philadelphia, who famously during the COVID draft one of the great moments in show history. During the COVID NFL Draft on Zoom, Fats was so excited in his kitchen he lit himself on fire.
Hell yeah, lit his chest on fire and screamed, Ben Mahler.
That would have won going Away, all right, Danny, that would have won going Away Mallard Palouoza this year, because listen, the truth is the malar Palooza brand, if there is such a thing, is not about being polished. It's not about being America's idol or what. It's about the community that's at the malther militia, the long distance misfits that keep us all company from the Witching Hour and beyond and.
All that stuff.
And so again, I don't I know this is a dated reference, but there used to be this thing called public access back in the day, and that was like YouTube before YouTube, and it wasn't good.
So you know what I'm saying, I mean you watched Public Access.
Right, Oh that it was like what was the Southern California DJ who used to walk around the beach?
Oh the por was it? The poor Man poor Man?
Yeah?
Oh yeah. He was like weed man hippie, except he had a job. I love you The poor Man, right?
And he hosted love Line. I mean that guy was quite the character. I think he don't sue me. I as I understand it, I might be wrong.
I think he sued.
I mean that was his his intellectual property, love Line, and he hosted it with doctor Drew ad k Rock and then they got rid of him and they, you know, obviously had Adam Corolla and a bunch of other people hosted that.
So but I think, yeah, yeah he was and he didn't he buy time on local TV. The poor Man, Yeah, go around?
And I remember watching it when I was younger because it was like he'd just interviewed hot chicks and bikinis, Like who doesn't want to watch that?
You know? I mean that's uh.
I just remember anytime his face would come on the TV, my mom would say turn the channel please.
Not very mom friendly.
Yeah, I remember him going around like Venice Beach or Santa Monica and he'd be interviewing or Huntington Beach and he'd be interviewing in my head like these really scantily clad, you know, college girls and asking the dumb question the world just because he wanted to show him on camera. You know, I didn't even care what they said. He was trying to, you know, get the the clicks. Uh So, yeah,
that's that's it. And I want more variety, like I feel like in years past on the Mallard Paluza, we just had a little more variety, you know what I mean, Danny, you know a little more. And it's difficult because we can't.
Show you it's radio.
But there's gotta be unique acts like a how about a good whistling act, something like that, a whistle act. We had the Boston Burper, wonderful act, the Boston Burper, and we love that he could burp out our names and talk and burp.
That was good.
How about a high powered fart, a person that could fart on command. That would do very well in future malle Losers. Now anyway, listen, it wasn't terrible the comedy. Again, I felt like I needed to go to an island surrounded by alligators because it was a little tough, a little tough, but.
I feel like I need a Mallord report starr In on this.
Yeah, I would give the malar palooza on the I would give it.
A C minus, like right in the middle. It's a passing grade. It's a passing.
Grade, but not not near the top.
And you know, I'm barely passing, barely.
Passing an eight to nine NFL record.
Yeah, it's Jeff Fisher. It's the old Jeff Fisher coach coaching. All right, we'll get out on that, Danny. We've got the mail bag tomorrow. Anything else you want to yap about. Promote a Saturday. I've got the honeydew list today. That's what I'll be doing. Yeah.
You know, well, my wife is going to be packing all day because I have to work next week, just like you. But her family once a year they meet up for a camping trip in Moro Bay.
I love morib It's beautiful. There's a nuclear power plant right there.
It's great.
The stacks, the three stacks in a rock. Yeah, And so she's going to be spending all day packing because she's going to take the kids to go see her family, and they're going to camp for a couple of days. Myself. I guess I'm gonna help in all that and then see them off, which means I'm going to have the house to myself for a couple of days. Women, Fifth Hour podcast party over here at the crib.
Nice Party's back in his bachelor days this week.
Boys.
Hey, yeah, me and the Burbank butt sniffer are back.
I saw that.
I'm glad they keep letting him out so he can sniff sniff more ass.
That's good.
Yeah, watch out if you are in a Barnes and Nobles anywhere near California, beware, I watch.
But what's worse, Danny, real quick, toss up? All right, what's worse?
The sniffer that goes around sniffing ladies tushes or.
The if you're really quick, If you don't know who we're talking about, there's this guy in southern California. He got caught sniffing female's butts in public. They threw the book at him, but he got out on bail. While he was out on bail, he got hot inside of Barnes and Nobles doing it again. So this guy just can't help himself.
This is what he loves. This is his love. What is worse that?
Or the Clippers assistant coach who was rubbing his tookis and then rubbed.
And wiped it on the hotel. I think that's actually worse.
Oh, that's worse.
That's worse. We agree, right, And it looked like.
He didn't even give a ship.
Literally, I literally gave a ship, Danny, he donated the ship.
He did give a ship.
I mean, he was so nonchalant about it. Nasty. I mean, obviously he didn't know he was being filmed on this camera. That's really a gross That's that's worse. I think, can you imagine actual who involved?
Do you imagine when he's likely been he's that didn't look like his first rodeo doing that, like he just.
Kind of casually did it.
First of all, my law would have smacked the ship out of us if we put our hands anywhere and down in our pants like that. So to number one, put your hands in there like that, I don't understand that. But two, to then get something out of there and then wipe it on a wall, what kind of animal are you?
That's a neanderthal? That's that's tough. That is a that is a tough one.
Yeah. Well, so I was just going to tell you about Cola really quick. Makes him seem tame for that camping trip. The wife, he was a little bit worried about him and his long dreadlocks. He hasn't had a haircut yet, so we had to make that very hard decision whether or not to get the baby his first haircut.
Yeah, yikes.
I'm gonna send you a couple of quick pictures right now, one of him in the chair with a lollipop. We thought that that would pacify him.
Wrong.
For maybe five seconds, he was okay with that lollipop, and this kid screamed, bloody murder. It was like somebody was trying to kill him. It scared the shit out of the couple of people out of the other customers that were inside this salon. And you see the after was not easy getting to that after photo there. So his baby, his baby hair is gone. Now.
It does look though, like he's got a capeon, like he's a superhero, Like he's a child super man.
You know, he's gonna be in a Marvel movie or something like that. That's pretty good.
I have not heard screaming like that since the time I was at the LA Memorial Coliseum as a little kid and a raider fan stabbed a security guard.
Wow, that's good.
Uh And he looks He looks good in the in the after photo, looks very professional, like he's ready to do the animal Thunderdome.
It could be his LinkedIn photo.
Yep, yep, yep, for sure, that's great. You think through the eyes of a child. Though he's never had a haircut, has he watched any anyone else in the house get a haircut?
Or has he ever seen that before?
She's tried before to like trim his hair herself. Yeah, and when the scissors come near him, he freaks the f out. So we knew that this was gonna be hard. And sure enough. He doesn't like being held down. He doesn't even like being in a car seat. Imagine what his first trip to the dentist is going to be. Like. Yeah, good luck on that, Danny. Yeah, he's gonna need a damn straight jacket.
Are you working that, dam I'm sure your wife will enjoy that. Yeah, all right, Well that's good man. He looks Listen, he does look like a superhero in that top photo.
That I'm looking.
I'll post this on my Twitter today at Danny G Radio.
All Right, very good, and we'll get out on that and the mail bag tomorrow. Have a great Saturday. Like I said, I got the the honeydew list. My brother in not this next week, but in a couple of weeks. My older brother is going to be in town, so I'm going to take a couple of days off from work and hang out with him.
But he's going to stay at the Malor Mansion, so we have to clean it up.
You know, we don't normally have guests at the Mallor Mansion, so we have to clean it up.
And my wife.
Has informed me it's like a two week process of cleaning. I didn't realize I was a slum lord, but apparently it takes two weeks to clean the house. So well, I'm sure i'll talk more about that when we go forward later on. I have a great Saturday. We got the mail bag tomorrow and see you then later.
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