Kutbooms.
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 to Clearinghouse of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard starts right now.
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mallor and Danny G. Happy Saturday to you, a college football Saturday, a baseball Divisional Round Saturday, and Danny G is alongside as we navigate the early part of the day. But people listen to those podcasts whenever they want to listen to this podcast, Danny, So we're here early, but we're here whenever you want. The magic of podcast the beauty of podcasting.
Yeah, it is a Yamamoto kind of Saturday. Yes, live up to that money. You didn't earn your money during the regular season, so earn your money in the playoffs, and all past sins will be forgiven.
Right.
Just the parrot what you did when you pitched in Japan, and do that in the playoffs here and there will be a monsoon of Dodger winns. So I've done the math on this, and as long as Yamamoto and Flaherty pitch well, the Dodgers should play in the Nation League Championship Series right now. The other problem is the bullpen, and they're gonna have to rotate eight million pitchers and everyone's gonna have to be right. But that's every team
in baseball. Every team plays the same way. It's like the other day, I was watching the Mets and the Brewers, right, and one day it's the Mets reliever who doesn't have it and deliver the pitch. It blows the game and so the Brewers win. Then the next day, well, I actually both pitched. The Mets had a guy that didn't pitch well, and then the Brewer guy said, hold my beer. He went out there and he was scrambling around. It
was a disaster. So but it's fine. Playoff baseball is always always cool, and we're allowed to talk baseball more when the playoffs are going on, and we're not normally a baseball during the regular season because it's boring and the players are boring, and it's.
Going to say as an on air producer, I always get kind of fidgety whenever Covino and Rich talk too much baseball, because in my mind, I feel like people are tuning out.
Yeah, like I limited, and if you say, if you were designing a pie, like what goes into the pie? What kind of ingredients? It's you know, the pies. The pies mostly NFL, and then but depending on what else is going on, like there's a big personality in the other like back basketball, we'll talk about that, but the baseball. I was actually talking to a buddy mine that does radio back East, and we were discussing and he likes baseball.
He's kind of around my age and our age, and he grew up loving baseball, and he's like baseball as an industry does not. I don't know what the right word I'm looking for is, but they just don't supply the content that would provide great sports bait, great sports conversation. Just not a lot of meat on the bone. Now, in the playoffs it happens organically, but during the regular season there's just not a lot there.
Football, no matter college, mostly NFL. Of course, it's compelling to the listeners, Baseball not so much, but in small doses.
But even college football, it's got to be there's only about ten to twenty programs that you can get away with talking.
About coaches in drama.
Yeah, well that's everything, But that's the thing like baseball, there's not a lot oft We saw a couple of stories this week that I thought were good sports radio stories. One involved a team that has no fans other than my guy, Marlin's Man, where the owner came in there
and went scorched earth and just napalmed. Everybody got fired, seventy staffers, he filed, He fired the guy that cleans the jockstraps, because clearly it was that guy's fault that the Marlins had a bad team on the field, and the traveling secretary who booked the hotels and all that he got, like, I mean, the whole thing. So like that was I found that amusing. And the Padres trying to block the dogs and which is such a bush league.
They do it every year. It's so bush league, and they they're so stupid.
Why do they do the day a bunch of b trying to block the blue out of their stadium.
You're just going to motivate more Dodger fans to spend three hours driving just around San Clemente and Santao free to get to San Diego. And you're just gonna annoy them. But it's a futile effort, Danny. If a Dodger fan wants to go, the podre fan has proven they will sell their tickets and they have this thing called the secondary market. And one thing I know about my Dodger fans, they are not afraid to spend their money on tickets.
They will spend their money to get into these ballparks. Yes, So on this podcast we have the monk Man, sad Doggies, no parking, no peace, Pop goes to the culture. You got the idiom of the week. I had a lot to get to, but we'll start with this. So Buddhist monk taking a valve silence. We've all heard that phrase. I would assume at one point or another, a Buddhist monk taking a valve silence. Now, I canceled last weekend all of my plans, all of my plans, in an
effort to recover from my purple burned tongue. My purple tongue for burning my tongue eating food too fast, and then reinjuring it pretty much every day. So I was usually go out with the wife, we do stuff. I said, I can't do anything. My mouth, Yeah, it's all messed up.
And then I was going to watch some football. We were going to pick our college game and we do this everyone my gambling buddy, and we load up on the game, go big on the game, and then we you know, I make I'll make like cheese steak or pizza or something like that, have a cheat meal, and we'll bet a lot of money on the game. And he come over and it's just a lot of fun. But I said, I can't do that all because of my tongue. Daddy, that's how messed even I did. This podcast was so messed up.
Man, did you try the peroxide?
I did try the side uh, and I felt like it helped my wife. So we shouldn't be doing that that whole thing. But I didn't die, Yeah, but not die. But she's all good whatever. But she reads everyone reads everything on the internet. Who knows what what's not? So anyway, the I call me monkman mallor like a Buddhist monk. And I read that the Buddhist monk they meditate and
they have the valve silence. It's part of their spiritual practice, and it's to deepen their understanding of themselves, their relationship with the world, and that valve silence. It's a discipline of the mind. And I want to point out I did not have any of that. I do not have a better understanding of myself. I do not have a
better understanding of the world. I have anger that I couldn't really eat anything good, and also anger that I was so stupid that I burned my tongue because I ate too fast and I didn't let the food cool down like I'm a child, and it pisses me off, which is almost as bad. Now, I will say, Nanny, side by side, side by side. The time a couple of years ago, I think I was working with you when I bit my tongue.
Oh yeah, I remember that.
That was much worse. So if you have to choose between burning your tongue, I could still somewhat function and pretend like I was not injured. But I could not do that. When I bit my tongue, I sounded like Lou Holtz and it was really bad. And that, as I point out, one of the great things that I've learned doing this job. Overnight, Danny is I can have laryngitis, I can have a lisp because I bit my tongue, and no one says, hey, Ben, you might want to
take the night off. No, No, nobody said up saying I just keep doing it, just keep doing the show. It's awesome. It is so fun that no one, no one cares. It's just amazing.
But are you saying our supervisor aren't up in the middle of the night listening to you.
Yeah, I'm just saying, even if they're not, they might hear the promos of me sounding like Lou Holtz at Notre Dame back in like nineteen, you know, eighty whatever. But anyway, I digress.
That part kills me. There's a promo I don't think it plays anymore. Finally, but there was a long standing promo of you on the network and you could tell that you have a cold.
Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
And I'm like, that's the one clip they find of Malord that it used to run like, I don't know, I'd hear it like once a day.
Yeah, well even last week. Coop will come in and he'll throw He's like, hey, we got to record these spots. You know, he'll throw me commercials and I'm like, my tongue is killing me. It sound terrible. And also when I don't get sick very often, I've been pretty lucky. With the garlic stuff that I do, I usually avoid any major illness. I'll probably get very sick now because I said that, I'll jinx myself. But I've been pretty lucky to last ap years in terms of cold flu stuff,
COVID whatever. And but inevitably, the few times I have gotten sick have been during periods of the time where we have to record a lot of commercials and then those things play for three or four months, and it's every time I hear them, I'm like, oh god, this is so bad. I get sad, but I'm not a sad doggie. I'm not a sad doggie, Danny, I'm not.
Yeah, a quick tip of the microphone to you, Ben. You gave me and my oldest pair of Raider tickets for last weekend.
Yeah, I'm glad you were able to use my I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. Yes, I know you love the Raiders, and I obviously couldn't go, and I'm not ram fan anyway, and I wanted to. I wanted to make sure you got to at least one Raider game this year, and you were able to. You were in I know you've been there before. How was this experience though?
Noah, So the last game I went to, the first game I attended ever at the Death Star was the classic Chandler Jones game where Mac Jones got trampled by him. Yeah, stiff arm with the Patriots making the bad decisions there at the very end of the game that would have went to overtime instead, as you remember, the Raiders walk off. So that game finished on the final play in spectacular fashion, and you still will see replays once in a while people say, probably the best Raiders game so far in
that stadium. How can I trump that? You fired billions and billions and billions. I'm like, all right, so we're going to drive. Do the stop in Barstow for breakfast del Taco?
What chain restaurant did you go to in Barstow?
Used the McDonald's that's in the train cars?
They Oh, yeah, classic McDonald's. Is the Panda Express still there?
It is? Yeah, that route sixty six.
There is interesting, you know, because half of it is abandoned and the other half is crowded.
Yeah, and they have every shain restaurant you There's a Freddy's if you want smash Burgers they have. I've driven to Vega. I don't fly to because I'm a pretty drive every time, so I know all the desert spots. There's Peggy Sus Diner if you want.
I thought of you when I passed Peggy SU's hermo's.
You thought of Eddie when you saw Eddie World, which is also in yourmal Your mo's are really happened in town. There's so much going on. You there's a Raising Canes out in the desert. Now they have a few raising canes out that way too. Not really a good breakfast place, though.
I had a pretty good plan in place because I booked in Advanced the Orleans. Yeah, and that was strategic because they have free parking, one of the few casinos with free parking.
Is huge.
Yeah, and it's close to a Legion Stadium, so I figured we'll get there two hours before the game free parking. Our room won't be ready yet, but we could check our bags and have them held and then get a lift or an uber to the stadium. Yeah, and so that's what we did. Modello SURVEYSA they had a tailgate party going which was cool with giveaways. They had like a gym, plunket, bobblehead and free drinks and samples, and the misters were out with fans.
Oh yeah, it was hot.
Oh yeah, it was a really hot day, one hundred and four degrees there that day.
Now does it actually cool down in the stadium when you're in the stadium, Is it feel comfortable? Is it's still hot?
Cools way down once you're inside the stadium. The only problem there with the design of that stadium, I would say the seats are made first, I feel like for smaller people at least the section we were in, because we felt a little crammed. The body heat around me made me hot. Guys, I felt a little too cram next to the big fat guy that was next to me. Other than that, though you got a fabulous view inside
that stadium. The way they designed it, you don't feel like any of the seats are sloping or there's an incline like you do it so far at Allegiance. You feel like no matter where you're at inside, you have a really good view of the field.
Yeah, it looks and I've not been inside. I've been by at the Death Star from the outside, but it looks great, and I'm glad it's cool. It's cooler in there, because I remember when I did stuff with the Dodgers when we'd go to Arizona and they have a dome, but they'd leave it'd be like July and they'd leave the dome open during bagging practice and they'd close it like an hour and a half before the game, and
it was still blazing hots. Like, what's the point I always said, like, what's the point of having a dome if you're gonna leave it open all day and then close it right before the game. It doesn't like it's still like ninety degrees in What are you doing? Anyway? Me off, But it was hot there, but you were you were having Raider fans. What was the percentage of Raider fans?
That was gonna be my next quick point.
As we're going up the escalator to the second level, there there are some Browns fans right next to us, and one of them, with his chest pumped out, tells his buddy who's got orange face paint on. By the way, he says, this is a home game. This is like a home game for us, and they're doing their barking chants and everything, and my son and I look at each other like wow, wow, and it got worse. Man, I had no idea that Browns fans could be so obnoxious.
They haven't won anything, right, No, not in my life and not in my lifetime either.
They have what they have. I've noticed the Browns fans, and I think they have a little bit of that Bill's mafia, that that region, you know, the Great Lakes region, gritty, you know, that that whole vibe, except at least the Bills now are good and at least they can back it up a little bit.
But yeah, yeah, And that was my one hope was that the creepy quarterback would you know, wet the bed and Amari Cooper would have some big drops and their vaunted defense would make some mistakes.
Appeared that the brown scored a touchdown until they did, you know, right away.
Yeah, because that happened in our end zone where we were sitting and we saw the hold right in front of us. Oh he actually the Brownie got a hold of some jersey besides grabbing the player.
I was watching on TV. I did not see it, and so I thought, oh, oh crap.
There was a video where some sad Browns fans were showing could you believe they called this a hold? But it was from the other side, It's hard to see what was going on, and of course they were showing that angle.
It clearly was a hold.
The fans in my section that had this ugly pooh colored Brownie stuff on, they were very They were very opinionated. They were very in your face type fans. That's what surprised me, because no Raider fans were antagonizing them or really paying attention to them. But there was this one Browns fan in the row right above us, and anytime the Browns did anything good in the game, he would flip us the double birds. He was doing this the whole game until Raiders defense stepped up big there shut
the door on the Browns. Raiders win the game, walk off with that defensive play. The Raiders fans that are in attendance are jumping up and down, celebrating as you would imagine, and these Brownies fans, who were very confident and very loud and very bark tacular. The amount of barking they do is amazing. They even did a thing where they would like do account and then they would all bark on Q together.
Oh sacredie barking.
That's good.
Yes, I saw that at a dog park one.
After that walk off defensive play by the Raiders, I was videotaping the guy who had been flipping us the double birds, and I was barking at him and telling him to have a nice trip home, don't let the doors hitch.
You on the way out.
And when he walked past me, he said, if you come to a Cleveland game, we'll show you what's up there at he said to me, And I'm like, yeah, first of all, I ain't going to a game in Cleveland, but if I did, I wouldn't have my chest out, you know, doing Raider chance in your face.
Buddy, Well you should have done is quoted the great joke him Noah and said Cleveland. Who goes to vacation with Cleveland. Yeah.
I felt like they thought that they were in a much nicer Cleveland, and they really were acting as if they were at a home game. Now, some of that is the season ticket holder's fault. They didn't like the performance the weekend before against the Panthers, which I understand, but you don't give up on your team after one bad game.
It's a great investment if you live in Vegas, or even if you're not in Vegas, it's a wonderful investment. Those are the most expensive seats in the NFL. Every week, like the Raiders have the most expensive tickets. So if you live in Vegas and you buy at face value and then you can sell every ticket and make over face value, you're making money on it. And then maybe you want to go to a game or two and that's it, and then the rest of them you sell.
So I understand why people do it, but as a fan, it sucks, and especially a team like the Raiders that always had such a passionate fan base and it was always always, at least on TV, even when the Raiders were bad, they always had tons of fans.
Yeah, and that's that's the stark contrast, as the analysts on TV would say, Because you're right. I was a ten year season ticket holder in Oakland and if there was a Browns family there, they would be Specs in the crowd because everything else would be silver and black. You really could see the visitors there because they stood out like a sore thumb. It was not a place
that visiting fans would go to. And then now in Vegas it's the other way around, where you have so many visiting fans inundating your stadium that it does feel almost like a home game for them, which could kind of get embarrassing. It was seventy percent Browns fans is seventy percent.
That's just too much. Man.
Now, we knew it was a trade off getting that nice new stadium in a place like Vegas where people already visit and already make their plans to go to that city ahead of time, and now obviously, oh let's make a weekend out of seeing our team there. We knew the Raider fan base knew that the trade off was there's going to be a visiting fans now coming in. I didn't know at this clip though. That's what's bad is that half and half. Even I could live with
seventy thirty. That's just that's well, that's pitiful.
I mean, the Raiders actually become a real the Raiders have a chance to contend. I still believe even with all the drama that's going on, I still think they have a chance to contend for a wild card spot, because all you have to do is get to nine or ten wins, and they have enough bad teams they play.
I lost to a bad team already, But if they just win a few of those games and they've already pulled an upset for a team that we thought they would lose to the Ravens, so or most people did, Yeah, the opportunity, but it's like I would I would say, like the Patriots. I remember when I first started to do we talked about this a few times. But for those that haven't heard, like when I started doing sports radio and we were on in Boston, the Patriots had
a horrible reputation. They'd never won anything. They had been to the Super Bowl a few times, but they weren't very good. And they became this juggernaut. And for the first like ten years of that, like guys would call up from Boston, but they weren't Patriot fans. They were fans of the Jets, of the Giants because the team
had been so bloh whatever. But now everyone in New England, all the kids that have grown up, were the last generation are all fans of pitches, but even in like Vegas, and people will stop selling their tickets because or not as many of them will sell it to.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
The one thing I'll say about that stadium besides it having a nice view from wherever you're at, the food in there is tremendous. They have done a great job with the variety and the quality of the food. It is pricey, like all the food in Las Vegas, but the variety and the quality of all the different vendors in there. They get a ten out of ten with their food at that stadium.
And this was rare and appropriate. Right, you're not going to go to a lot of these games. So did you enjoy? Did you indulge? What was the top thing that you ate?
We got a barbecue brisket burrito, Tell me more, Tell me more. And my son and I both read the ingredients up on the board when we were standing in this line and we're like, man, we got to get that brisket burrito. It was thirty six bucks for two
of them, so not cheap but worth every bite. We bit into this brisket burrito and looked at each other, We're like, oh, Man, they're on point with their food here at this place, because I remember spending the same amount of money when I went to a Raiders Rams game in the preseason a couple of years back, and the food there was garbage expensive with no flavor. They gave us a ton of free doctor Pepper's ben when
we first walked into that Modello tailgate zone. Okay, the problem is you can't walk those into the stadium.
She had to drink them in as fast as you can.
Yeah, so you saw people chugging doctor peppers. We get the last thing on it. When we got to the Orleans to check our bags and check out the sports book before we got our uber, there were lots of Browns jerseys in there. There were Raider jerseys too, but there was a lot of Browns fans inside the casino Slash hotel. When we got back to the hotel after waiting in the uber line at the stadium, there were no brown jerseys to be seen anywhere, not at the restaurant.
There no Browns fans, just Raider jerseys. The tables at the sports book that we popped into there they renovated.
They have one nice new sports book in there.
I've been in there in a while. I did they still have the frogs they used to have frogs out frogs?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They have that Marty Gras slash New Orleans frog vibe. Yeah, they have the big frogs when you first walk in, like playing the saxophone and the Marty Gras instruments.
Yeah, cool vibe in there.
But my son and I both looked at each other and were like, what magically happened to all the Browns fans that we saw, you know, in here prior to the game. So our theory is that they all went to their rooms, changed out of their Browns crap, and then got into some you know, play clothes and went back down to the machines.
It was a wardrobe adjustment that took place there.
It had to have.
It had to have been because they were so proud of that ugly brown color prior to the game, and then afterwards we saw none of it being represented.
You got crickets. That's all we got. All right. A couple of things. I just want to mention, no parking, no peace. So while you were at the Raider game, I had every intention I had planned on being at the Chiefs Chargers game. I was supposed to attend the game at so far there was a cluster f that I did not go. And the reason I was going to go, I have some friends that work for the Chiefs that I wanted to see that on the radio side for the Chiefs, So I was going to go out.
And they only come into LA once a year, so I go out and see them and hang out watch the game. It was a game I was interested in, but I got a whole routine. So there was a cluster f involving the parking. I got an email. The way this works and when you're you're going to a game in the media, you get an email saying, hey, you've been approved. You know, you get a pass whatever. But there's a couple layers to it because they also have to there's parking that's part of it as well,
and that's separate, and I have a rule. I'm at the point now in my life I'm officially middle aged Danny. If I don't get the parking, I don't go. I'm not I'm not dealing with the bull crap. I don't want any part of it. I already had one parking incident I talked about on a previous episode of this podcast. So I get approved from this charger person and normally what happens is within a couple hours they'll send the parking. It's no problem. I just that I've done this for
years and that's just yeah, I work. But I didn't get that second message saying here's your parking. Uh oh, So it guess to Friday night. You know, I'm trying to plan my weekend and nothing, So I send I shoot an email. On Saturday when I woke up, I shoot an email to the charges, hey I haven't gotten the parking yet. And a couple hours later I got an email back from one of the PR people for the chargers like, well, we sent it to somebody else who works at your company, but that's not me. Why
didn't you just send it to me? You always say this. I was like, I didn't understand that, So then I contact I will not name the person, but I contacted the person. They were like, well, I don't know how to get in the app. I don't know the password. I don't use the app, you know, just I don't. I can't figure it out. So we're going back and forth. It got to about ten o'clock on Saturday, and that was my cutoff, and I'm like, I'm not going, and
so then I get up to watch the games. And the games start on the West Coast at ten in the morning. But I'm up, I'm watching the games and I'm like, well, I'm not going to the Charger game. So it gets to ten thirty seven. I wrote down the time, Danny. Ten thirty seven, I get a text, all right, here's your parking. Well I can't. Well, you
know where I lived in I can't. It's a hole to do to get to Sofi Stadium from where I live from the North Woods and so plus I have to go to bed earlier because I have to drive, and I have to stay out that way. It's a hole to do, right, I gotta go to the game, which is fine. I enjoy going to the game, and I got to get there early. I get there to watch the early games on my laptop, and then I watched the Chiefs game and I schmooze a little bit,
and it's that whole thing. But at ten thirty seven in the morning, the early games had all kicked off, so I'm watching that. It would have taken me probably two hours to get to the stadium. It would have taken me another hour to get in, so I would have gotten in after kickoff. If I'm lucky, I would have gotten in by the end of the first quarter. Maybe not, but then I'd still I wouldn't have been able to see The whole point of going was to get there early because my guys I wouldn't be able
to see that they're working during the game. And so as I asked, threw it so I didn't go. Ah, And at this point, like I don't know. I mean, I love going to games, but it's like it's such a They've made it so inconvenient, and it's like, you know, I'm I don't need it. I mean, I'll go occasionally, but it's just a better for me watching flipping around watching the games on TV. It's like you see everything you know, and I see everything on my computer. But
it's just I don't know, it's a different thing. It just left a bad taste in my mouth because it's just bad, you know, bad pr work or whatever. One more thing. Let's get to the let's see you what do we want to do here? We have the always exciting idiom of the week.
Idiom of the week.
All right, this week it is it's no skin off my nose, No skin off my nose, which is some people say no skin off my back, but there's other people that say no skin off my nose. It obviously means I think we all know, maybe not. It doesn't bother you, whatever's going on. So there's a number of different theories regarding the source of this. However, the one that is most often used it goes back to the
early twentieth century, from the world of boxing. The earliest recorded use was found in nineteen ten by Cosmopolitan magazine and it was called the Cosmopolitan the family magazine, and they use that. But others disagree with that that it
does not come from boxing. Others claim that the word of the phrase not from boxing, but from the mill, people working in the mill, and that it's actually the opposite of putting your nose to the grindstone, that the fact that there is no skin off your nose meant that you were lazy, you didn't work hard, and that's why there was no skin off your nose, because you didn't put your nose to the grindstone and all that.
So it's gone back and forth. A lot of people think it's the boxing one, but there are people that also say it's the other one. So it's one of those two. The origins of it's no Skin Off My Back, and there's also a version of no Skin Off My teeth, which is like a weird version of that. So anyway, that's that. Anything Danny going on, I'll be watching baseball and college football all day to day. Anything you got going on.
Well, there's supposed to be a birthday celebration for our daughter happening later this morning at Wayna Park where as you know, knots Berry Farm resides.
Oh, Vietnaught. It's gonna be hanging out there.
Yeah, it's supposed to be a hot day there, so we're going to hang out as long as we can make it and try to be back in the afternoon for the first pitch of the Dodgers game.
All right, that's the Dodgers are playing I think five thirty our time.
Yeah, it's a five thirty eight first pitch. All right.
You know who's got the most punishable face in all of baseball? Would that be Manny Machado?
And he's an ex Dodger who said he didn't want to play on the West Coast, and then took a ten year contract from the Padres, which I think are on the West Coast, but I don't know.
Hey Ben, he's no Johnny Hustle. Okay, yeah, a legend.
I saw it the longest single in World Series history against the Red Sox. Remember he hit the ball off the wall and thought it was gone, so he was like, shooted any first base? Yeah, wonderful, all right, having a wonderful Saturday. We got the mail bag on Sunday. Tell a friend, tell a friend about the podcast, help us out, keep the pirate ship floating, and we'll talk to you next time.
Later. Skater my flat