The Fifth Hour: "Open Up Schmuck" Mail Bag

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, it's the clearinghouse of hot takes. Break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.

In the air everywhere and a happy Sunday, the final day of the NFL regular season at a couple of NFL games on Saturday. But today, this the seventh day of the great month of January twenty twenty four. Hanging out Ben Mallard Danny G Radio as we schmooze every single day. You hear me on the Ben Mahler Show overnights on Fox Sports Radio, and on the weekend, I come in here and hang out with Danny G, who you hear on with Covino and Rich during the week during the day on Fox Sports Radio. And so we

Trotters only on TV? When I was a kid, Yeah.

My parents took me to one at the Anaheim Convention Center and I thought these guys were magicians. I was a child. I had no I these are the most amazing play Why are these guys not in the NBA. These guys are amazing? He is metal lark Lemon, and I was like, these are.

The beginnings of a sports ned.

Yeah.

I was like that.

I mean, you know, every trick shot. It was wild National bobblehead day. See we're old. We remember when bobbleheads all had the same body and they mostly had the same heads. But you'd have like the Atlanta Braves mascot or the Cleveland Indians mascot had the really but now the wolkesters would say offensive head.

Yeah yeah, And there were only two nationalities back in the day.

Yes, that's all. That's all they had.

Well that was available per bobblehead.

I remember the Rangers bobblehead. The old Rangers bibble head had like a cowboy hat on. I remember that, but most of them were pretty much the same, pretty much the same, those old old bobbleheads. All right, enough of those dopey holiday So on this the Sunday Pop, we will get to the mailbag. We're gonna work our way to the mailbag. We've got open the door. Open the door, you're a hack and a little pop goes to the culture and we'll get to the mail bag as well.

You know.

It's like, you know, he's a big fan of the show. And let me give you the backstory. So the this is Global Exclusives. I said, So Chris lives in North Carolina. He works on it. He's from Wisconsin, from the Milwaukee area, and he has been a fan for about ten years. But he's not a call. Not a call. He's on social media, but he's not like on there all the time.

So I go back.

I'm like, well, maybe he canceled. Just a long drive. I thought, well that maybe he just canceled. So then Coop comes in about thirty minutes later. He says, I keep getting this email from this guy and he wants to come in, and I'm like, uh, yeah, yeah, I let him in. There there's no I know, I know who they got and uh. And Coop was a little concerned because he didn't know. The guy is not a caller, right,

On the air.

We're going back and forth and Eddie. Eddie's like kind of an agreement. And then I explained the guy had driven from far away and he's a big fan of the show. And then so we convinced Eddie to kind of go out and check him out to make sure he was all right because I was on the air. And so eventually it worked out the guy's name is Chris, good guy, and we were able to work out and eventually opened the door. It did happen. And not only that, this is how quickly Coop and Iowa Sam changed.

Danny g Oh.

He must have brought food, Yeah, brought donuts and not just donuts. Chris went to like this really cool famous.

Oh I saw the leftover. There were a couple leftover when I got there on Thursday afternoon.

Yes, yes, so he had gone to this bougie donut shop in LA that is he looked. He did research on the internet. He's like, this is like one of the top donut shops. And so he brought those in and yeah, they.

Put like fruit loops on top of donuts.

Yeah, like bacon fruit loops, all kinds of interesting things you would not normally see.

On a donut.

And it was, you know, it was great. I didn't eat any I took a couple home to eat later, which I did eat. They were really good, not as good as if I eating them fresh. So that was open the door.

Funny because when I got to work Thursday afternoon for Covino and Rich, Jason Stewart, the producer of Doug Gottlieb, showed me the box and offered me a donut. I thought they were from him.

Oh is that right? Well, I didn't realize there were that many left because because Eddie was eating a bunch and Coop and Sam were eating them, and I took a couple. So there must have. He must have brought a ton of donuts then.

And this was right before I had broken my streak with your peanut brittle because I told Jay Stew I said, noah, man, I haven't had the dessert in like thirteen weeks. And He's like, you're kidding me. Donuts don't even look good to me. Aka, I'm gonna walk back to my backpack and eat more of the peanut brittle.

Yeah. Well, you know what, if you're gonna eat a donut, you gotta eat pretty quick. Olthoughise Like it's the same thing with fast food, Like every minute that goes by with fast food against worse. Some donuts, there's like a sweet spot within an hour and a half, you can eat it.

Yeah. Yeah, they were stale. Loraina said, oh my god, the one I ate was stale and I still ate it. Yeah, because it's a donut.

And it's free. And she's in radio and yeah, and how that works. Uh so you are a hack the other day and Benny Versus the Penny is airing more today, so check that out on regional cable television distributed by NBC. Benny Versus the Penny the TV Show, but after the taping of the TV show with Looney Tunes. So I get a message on my phone and it's like, it's this weird direct message from a fellow Fox Sports radio show's account, which is out of context and make makes

So okay, So.

Then I have to text Elijah and I have to be like, hey, what's uh you know, what's what's going on with this?

You know?

And and then I didn't know if he was busy doing stuff with some of the other shows and whatnot, you know, like I'm not sure, and but anyway, he did did eventually respond, did eventually respond, and then I was only texting him. Uh but uh uh Seeger is it Seager? Am I saying that right? Am I saying his name right?

Sager? Saga? Sager? Sager? Yeah? When he first got hired, they're like, think of soccer when you say his name Sager.

I mispronounced his name.

Of him, fellow Raiders fan, He's a very cool dude.

Oh I love Sager.

Yeah.

He In fact, he was at the holiday party. That's how much I love him. He was at the ugly sweater party.

Oh nice.

I guess I didn't even know how to pronounce his name, but he didn't correct me soccer all right? Anyway, so I I messaged him. Eventually it was a I'd stayed up for like an extra hour. We were going back and forth. I had to do this like facial recognition video to Instagram, and then that didn't work, and then so then I was like texting Elijah to text me the code so I could type the code in and

Boom boom boom.

Boo?

Jog John?

What's on popca?

What do a few of these?

I don't want to go too long on popcos the culture because we got the mail bags. Study has revealed the most expensive and the least expensive states for fast food fast food. You see this. It's a good story, a decent story. It's happened recently. What do you think the most expensive in the United States? All fifty states? What is the most expensive location for fast food, which

It's got to be New York, right.

No, believe it. It is not. It is Anchorage, Alaska. Oh wow, Yeah, Anchorage, Alaska is the most expensive for fast food. And Honolulu, Hawaii.

I should have known Hawaii because I've eaten at a fat food place there. We're like, holy crap.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. The top three are Anchors, Alaska, Honolulu, Hawaii, Fairbanks, Alaska. What do you think Number four is all this?

I mean California.

It is in California. Which city in California?

Westlake Village?

Kind I'll give it to you. Los Angeles, Okay, Los Angeles has done yeah, fourth most expensive fast food in the entire United States, going to this recent study that was done followed by for some reason, Edmund, Oklahoma. Why would Edmund, Oklahoma have expensive fast food?

That's weird. And New York didn't even make the top five.

It is not in the top five. New York is number nine, though they are in the top ten. Oklahoma is the outlier. All the other ones are either in Hawaii, Alaska, California. There's a lot in Washington state, Tacoma Bellevue, which is not far from Seattle.

That must be like the wealthy neighborhood in Oklahoma. Yes, like the mansions are there in the state.

I don't yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe it's like a big stop on the way in between Texas and Oklahoma City or something. Maybe like they could charge a lot, but it seems rather somebody from that area needs to let us know. Yeah, us, if you're in Oklahoma. We've got Kyrie who's in Oklahoma City who listens to the podcast. He's emailed us every once in a while. Yeah, give us a heads up on that. Because you're more expensive than New York City for fast food. That makes

Oh, let's say Paris, Texas.

Paris, Texas. No, Dallas is pretty cheap. They're number four. He's number five on the cheap category. The cheapest fast food. I'll give you the top three, number three, harker Burg, West Virginia. They're about eleven percent, eleven percent little more than that, cheaper than everyone else. Wheeling West Virginia.

Oh, Wheeling. Who was our regular caller from Wheeling?

Oh? What was it?

Radio Rich?

Radio Rich? That's right, Radio Rich from Wheeling, West Virginia.

What happened to Radio Rich?

I don't know. Maybe I hope he's still around. If anybody's heard Radio Rich call the show, let us know. But he was in kind of poor health. I don't know if anything happened, but he used to call in. Uh. And the cheapest how does Burg, Mississippi? How does Burg, Mississippi? They are twelve point one percent cheaper and everyone else everyone else.

In there's Isssi S SIDEPPI.

Yeah, it's all the cheap. The cheapest state overall is Texas, but it's all in the South, Like the cheap food is in the South, and then the Upper Midwest. That's pretty reasonable, but not you know, like Wisconsin's pretty much on average, and a lot of the more expensive places are on the coast. They can and Alaska and Hawaii are by far the most overall. So there you go. Fun fact. Fun fact about the most and least expensive

I wish I didn't remember that story.

It has happened again, this time in China. The Chinese Chess Association announced this week that it has banned Yan cheng Long from He had recently won the national I give him some title in Chinese tennis. But yeah, Yan allegedly clenched and unclenched rhythmically to communicate this. This is great. I'm reading this right outside of news story. Okay, so

Uh? Yeah, you think that you have to practice with those butt muscles ahead of time?

What are you do? You buy it on Amazon. I need some anal beads, some vibrating anal beads is what I need to win a chess tournament. God, unreal, man, I had no idea that was competitive in chess. I had no no concept that it was that competitive. That's that's wild to me. That's absolutely two.

Stand for the Queen's Gambit too.

What else is on pop goes the culture? Well, this is a totally different competition. A thirteen year old child has become the first person to beat Tetris on nes more than thirty years after its release, no one had been able to win Tetris, and a thirteen year old kid was able to crack the code.

It's pretty cool, right, crazy? Yeah, I just got a switch recently, and so I've been playing some old school Nintendo games.

According to tech Spot, I'm not sure what that is, but apparently they know all about this out the guy the kid named Willis Gibson, thirteen year old Tetris pro became the first person to achieve what the community considered a true skill screen after making it all the way to level one fifty seven before causing the game to crash, a feat that no one else before him had ever managed to achieve.

That is insane. I downloaded ninety six Tetriss nineteen ninety six is famous version, and I swear to god, I sucks so bad. I probably got like three or four levels in How did he What did he do one fifty seven.

On level one fifty seven that caused the game the game crash that he got all the way to the end of it crash.

What the Yeah? Those are like those kids we knew or saw doing the Rubik's Cube when we were little kids, and they could yeah, yeah, solve that thing in a couple of minutes. Like how what the I swear that you're like grain man if you can do stuff like that, Yeah, that's pretty cool.

I don't know what to make of as Cat Williamson, did you guys talk about it on Covino and Rich He did an interview with Shannon Sharp.

Yeah, a little bit because of the back and forth with Cedric the entertainer.

Yeah, like he was after everybody, right, he was just really yeah, oh he had a he had a hit list. Yeah, he also went after Diddy, right, Joe Rogan, Steve Harvey I think was also mentioned.

Yeah, Steve Harvey was the other one who made headlines.

Yeah, Kat Williams, I mean he was equal opportunity. He wasn't just like white guys or black guys. He was after everybody. He you said he had a hit.

List, right, Yeah, it makes for great radio. Yeah, no, for sure.

I mean it reminded me of like Musburger talking about what happened to Gruden, Like cat he went in there with that. It was like a professional hit job. He was like a paid assassin. Yeah, he he. He had an agenda anyway for it. I just get to the male bag, male bag, male bag, Here we go, here we go. Oh it's I think so Ohio or the tunes.

They did.

We got tons of mail, so maybe I don't even have to post, but I'll still probably post most of the time. But this week I was like, eh, I was like, let's just do a test. Either that or I forgot to post.

Oh no, hell Bill Miller.

One of those two things. Either one. Barry from South Carolina writes and says yo yo ma, Banny and Danny g on one of the first mailbag shows you did like five years ago. I asked a question about your least favorite game you played. You said Coach Player Entertainer, and that that has now been replaced by the Malard Militia feud. You also said if anyone had an idea for a game, to suggest one. Well, it has taken only five years, but Barry has emailed back with an idea.

There's time constraints. There's only so much time. Coop couldn't prepare that night's game during that shows.

It's very hard, you know, It's very hard burry.

You know that.

So as long as you can do it rather quickly, that might be the way to do it. So I will check that out. One hundred thousand dollars period. We'd have to, we'd have to come up with a Mallard name for it. But thank you for that, Nick, and Wisconsin rights in uh, he says Ben and Danny g Back to the would you rather game? Would you rather have a wet sock or a rock in your shoe while wearing your shoes? Neither one of these is good. I've had. We've all had both, right, but there are few.

The sock is where your body's power and heat comes from. That's why people who don't wear socks to bed in the winter are robots, moron. There's no way you're not getting sick if your lounge around with no socks on in the middle of the freezing winter. Well, I do not.

I'm a robot. I don't wear socks in the in the winter, right though. But here's the famous quote. This is one of the all time great Muhammad Ali quotes. And he said, it's the mountain ahead, the climb that wears you out, But it's the pebble is I always say, it's not the mountain ahead that wears you out, it's the pebble in your shoe.

I think you just made that up. No, I look it up.

That's a famous I'll give you the exact quote. It isn't the mountains ahead, the climb that wear you out. Muhammad Ali said, it's the pebble in your shoe, the pebble in your shoe. And I agree because I have had like a little rock, a little piece of a rock Nick in Wisconsin and Danny, I've had that in my shoe and is so freaking annoying and every step you take, like the wet sox thing sucks and it's not comfortable. But it's the lesser to me. It's the

Yeah, there's nothing worse than a wet sock. And it starts to stink within what a half hour, starts to smell like mildew on the foot.

But but will eventually dry out.

Right, it's gonna smell even worse when it dries out. Yeah, wet shoes no good. Wet sock is Yeah. We've all had that day in school, in elementary school where you stepped in a puddle. Maybe you did it on purpose. When the water bleeds into the sock from your shoe, You're like, oh shit, what did I do? Because then you got to walk around in that squishy feeling.

Oh yeah, that's frrimal.

Yeah, it's not good at all.

All right, what's next? On the mailbagh'll Billy Mike writes in says he Ben and Danny g I'm a huge Clemson fan and because they're Clemson guys, I hate to see Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence turned out to be mediocre, big disappointments to me. What sports figures did you guys really have high hopes for only to turn out to be big letdowns? From Hillbilly Mike. Oh, there have been many.

I will take your Darryl Strawberry and one up you with Todd Morenovich.

Oh, yes, that's a good one.

His dad famously, his father fed him nothing but superfoods. Todd had never even had a cheeseburger until he got to USC And so he comes to the La Raiders as their savior, their new franchise quarterback. And I'll never forget this, Ben, I was a little kid. I was there at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for his debut NFL game, and a guy was holding up a big sign that said, Todd, you are our future. Didn't it didn't work. Didn't quite work out that way, speaking of snorting cocaine, that.

Was a tough one.

Well, now Todd is a well known artist.

Now what about Jermarcus Russell? Did you buy into the hype for JaMarcus Russell?

Another ground? Not really, to be honest with you, No, because he looked like a slug the moment he got on the field in Oakland. Yeah.

Like, I didn't think Jared Goff would be very good when the Rams drafted him, and I was right, And then he had When McVeigh came in, he played pretty well, but then he went back to kind of stinking.

After after a while, we wanted JaMarcus Russell to be good because of all that money he got. That was obviously before the rookie salaries changed, so he was handed a boatload of money, if you remember. I mean, I wanted him to be good. But you could tell once he got into games and he threw interceptions left and right. Then he ran off the field with his head down like Theapoleon dynamite, and every game he looked chunkier and chunk Here he was sipping on that lean.

I'm on drugs right now, man. Yeah, you know, Brady's eating avocado ice cream. He's got the therapeutic pajamas. He's got the protein bars and the water with electrolytes. And then your guys got the purple drink. That's your guy.

Yeah, yeah, dating dongs and purple kool aid?

All right, what's next? Al from hr Rights and he says, any chance you gentlemen are looking for a side hustle to make a little cash. I hear there's an opportunity for you to possibly pick up an extra shift to I can't imagine why the network is having a hard time keeping people around. And then he posted I guess there's a job opening for you going to be an engineer at Fox Sports Radio, and he.

Said part time board operator.

Sign me up, he says, interested in working at Fox Sports Radio, question Mark, We are currently hiring a part time board operator for our live shows. There's a photo of al Tyshirt running the Jason Smith Mike Harmon show. He looks standing up. He's got good posture.

I know, I've never seen Ty Shirt stand like that. At the controls.

He's normally sitting with his feet up on the table, but he's standing there looking all professional like he's he's misting intently there and there's TVs on in the background.

Oh, normally he's holding this huge shake with forty seven natural ingredients.

As somebody planted. It looks like a two liter bottle of sprite or mountain dew next to Ty Shirt, which I don't think is his. And then I see in the background I didn't notice this is that. I believe that's Jason Smith's producer walking through the door in the photo.

Oh, Prosburg, Prosburg.

With a mask. Yeah he's got a mask. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, he looks like he's about to he's a rob. He's gonna rob the place? Is what he looks like.

Prosberg just celebrated his fifth year of COVID.

Yes, Frostburg believes the mask is now a musk, no matter what, no matter what.

And also he was at home for four of the five years, which is amazing.

So is he the last fully masked guy that we have at our place? But which is fun?

Oh no, he's not. Really?

Who else is there.

In the early mornings. Joel wears a mask, but it's weird because he doesn't wear it all the time, which makes me scratch my head a little bit.

Yeah, I don't need to go down that road. I've had many conversations why my wife. My wife's like, I'll just let him wear a mask. Who cares? I'm like, it doesn't work. You know, I go through that whole.

You are the same guys that drive in their car wearing the mask and no one else is in the car.

Oh that drives me nuts, man, I can't I cannot help but take photos. And my wife's like, you shouldn't take photos of those people. They're driving with their windows up and they're wearing a ma I mean, if it's that deadly, we're all.

Doing everybody knows the four h five Freeway has given thousands of people COVID.

I know whatever. Anyway, thank you for that, Alf the alien o Piner. Next one on the mailbag, we do a couple more. Get out of here, Mike, and Fullerton says, Happy New Year, Ben and Danny g twenty twenty three was a banner year for the Fifth Hour, but I am confident that twenty twenty four will be even better. Don't let me down, guys, he says. Is it okay for West Coasters to celebrate the New Year's at nine pm by watching an East Coast feed of the ball

You know. I remember my aunt checking in on the East Coast feed of like Dick Clark or whatever it was at the time, and she'd always say the same thing. She'd be like, Oh, the world didn't end, We're going to have another year.

Yeah. Well, I was my brother, who's actually this is funny. He's flying back from from Type AI and he was he was in Vietnam over New Year's and so they're a day ahead, like seventeen hours ahead or something like that. So he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's already New Year. And the trip back from typey fine, all the way back over the top of the of the unit of

No.

No, it's eight thousand miles from LA But he lives in New York, so he's he's going to New York.

All right?

Next one, last one, Marcus from Bruceville, Eddie, Texas says, what's what are the two of you guys thoughts on X not giving? Oh the he's talking about the Moncei thing with Lamar Jackson. Yeah, I mean that's just internet bullshit. You know, Moncey's job as a talk shows just to have opinions, and she had an original opinion and people got all upset. People get so anal about these these so stupid.

Yeah, there's been an inside joke, and I know Covino and Rich do this thing where they impersonate Colin where he says stars attract stars and I like my quarterbacks to be quarterbacking.

Oh yeah, No, there's a promo.

There's a promo that runs and runs a lot on our network. Now most of the affiliates probably don't hear it because they're playing commercials right there. But in our studios we hear this promo saying quarterback in now what Howard's referring to. As you know for years of him on the air, he doesn't like quarterbacks to wear their hat backwards.

Yes, yeh yeah, to be you.

Know, like young and want to be hip or whatever. He's saying, Your quarterback is your CEO, the face of your company, Be a leader, be professional. That's always been his take on quarterbacks. So in that promo, that's what he's talking about. So when she was on the air with Dan Byer, she was saying stars attract stars and although her point how she didn't believe he was a pocket passer and all that, that he was just a

I know, it's a it's a dog whistle. I love that. No, it's just it's just take stupid. It's it's it's a take uh and uh. And yes, I've had a few of these things over the years. Dan, Even these things happen. This is I think Moncey's first test, or not first test, first taste of this kind of thing, right doing since yead Fox Sports Radio and so It's usually the problem for Monzi is the timing on this because the way these things work normally, in a normal sports news cycle,

Well, and then, of course the bad timing was Lamar Jackson then lit it up and had a perfect passer rating.

Well that and the Ravens, like social media team pointed, I think they tweeted out quarterback.

Ye, they did as well as former Ravens. And then Lebron got in on it.

Oh me, Now, what Monsie needs to do is when Lamar goes out and rides the vomit comment in the playoffs, which is inevitable, she should tweet out, I look pretty quarterback, you lead or whatever to me. You know, I just have have fun with it.

He saw. Yeah, now that's something definitely I could see you doing.

Oh I would absolutely, I would definitely do that.

Yeah. So you don't think the Ravens are gonna make it to the super.

Bowl, No, No, I don't. Lamar has been a terrible playoff quarterback, and.

But it wasn't a lot of that injuries, and then the they had the layoff and they looked out of saying.

Lost of the Tennessee Titans. He's gonna have a He's have another layoff, though, he's got to build.

I feel like there's a better team around him this season now.

I thought the twenty nineteen Ravens were better than this team. This team lost to the Cleveland Browns at home and are that. I know the Browns are a playoff team, but I didn't think the bouncer.

Well, I mean, I've always I've always said pretty nice things about Lamar Jackson. I remember on out kick the Coverage Your very Own Eddie Garcia ganged up on me along with Clay Travis because they said I was a prisoner of the moment with Lamar. That was when he had his MVP season. Play made the assumption that Lamar would never win a super Bowl, and I argued with him about that and Eddie said, he's all flash and no substance. I don't know about that. He looks like

I was wraw. I didn't think he would be good. He's He's played better than I thought he was going to play in the NFL. But the super Bowl thing is always a great take that Clay had because most of these guys will never win a super Bowl. Even if you're good, you're not going to win a super Bowl. Most of these guys will pass through the NFL and never win anything because they only.

Give out one. I think what he said was he would never sniff a super Bowl.

Oh well, I think he'll sniff a super Bowl. He'll definitely do that. But it's one of these guys until I see him play well in the play Peyton Manning was a terrible playoff quarterback. His brother was a better pole.

You buy into that. People say, if you're a one man band, that doesn't work in the big game. You can't beat a team by yourself.

Well, the problem in the playoffs is you play better teams. And they, even though they don't like to talk about this part out loud, they they game plan a little differently in the playoffs. And lamar as good as he is, I mean, everyone's got weakness, is right, everyone's got kryptonite, and so far in the playoffs, teams have really been able to expose his kryptonite. Now, who the Ravens are going to play and all that. We don't know until

It gets you out there in the public eye.

Yeah, and then she's got it's weird like with and I don't know, obviously not speaking for women, but I've worked with women in the business over the years, and it seems like they get a lot of love. But if they say an opinion that guys don't like, they get the extra level of oh you're a woman, you know, that kind of crap that they owe.

Yeah, a lot of that of the comments what football team did she start for in high school? At college?

Exactly? That's a douche douche. Canoe checks in that one from his cave the ne Anderthal. All right, we'll get out on that. Thank you, Marcus and everyone else that we didn't get your email. I was really impressed. I was concerned because I did not did not promote the email, but Mike and Steve and all you other guys will send another email for next week if you want to write an in a Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Enjoy the football today, Danny.

Yes, sir? Monday afternoon with Covino and Rich from two to four pm on the West Side, and that is five to seven pm in Newark, New Jersey.

Beautiful Newark, New Jersey, where it smells like chemicals. Have a wonderful day, and we'll catch you next time.

Later. Skater gotta murder, I gotta go