The Fifth Hour: Pause the Prompter!

it is. This is a big holiday. Who doesn't like fried rice? I've never met anyone that doesn't like fred rice. Fried Rice goes all the way back to like five eighty nine, a d Chinese culture came up with fried rice, but it really wasn't until Benny Hanna came around in the nineteen sixties that the modern Western world of America fried rice took off. So it's it's one of those made up holidays. But it's also National Concussion Day. Now, when I was a kid playing football and you had

a concussion, they said you had a headache. They said, oh, you got a headache, you know, put some rip, some dirt on it, that kind of thing. So you've got that. Also National string Cheese Day. Now. I don't know about you, I don't know how old you are and all that stuff. But in my world when I was a kid, the guys at lunch that had the string cheese were cool and I very rarely got access to that. It was like contraband. And there were two things I remember on

the elementary school lunch circuit. String cheese, and then they had these little crackers that were like orange crackers with peanut butter, and those were big, Like he had those, you were next level. Also, chocolate milk, not just regular milk, chocolate milk. My lunch is when I was a kid, were a lot of tuna fish sandwich. I had peanut butter and jelly. Now the tuna fish sandwich is related

to me not liking seafood. I ate so much. To my mom loved tunafish sandwiches up Turkey and tunafish sandwiches. But she's, oh, yeah, it's healthy, it's fish. God only knows what kind of iron and other crap was in that fish, but in the tune it back in those days, but eating them, the sandwiches growing up, and you know, I had this little crappy metal lunch box. We had like one little thing of ice. But it did not last.

The amount of time I showed up at school like eight in the morning, lunch was like twelve thirty And somehow, in the span of those four four and a half hours, the tuna fish sandwich during the warm parts of the school year would turn to a kind of warm, mushy, disgusting thing, and I ate it for a while, but it was like, I'm at the point now, I'm like, I eat seafood once a year. I will have beer battered fish sticks and fries once a year. Sometimes I don't even go once a year. Sometimes I go two

years without eating the fish. So there is that. But anyway, it's National string Cheese Day. Celebrate appropriately. I think we know what to do to celebrate National string Cheese. I just eat some cheese. I just eat go out, eat some cheese. Knock yourself out. Now on today's podcast, we've got calm Waters, propter rapt keys please, and a Banksy ripoff. A Banksy ripoff. We'll get to that as well, and we also we have time, we'll get to some foodie fun and I also have a phrase of the week.

But let's start with this. It is now week three of the NFL season, and another episode of the TV show will be up today. Depending on where you live and how you access the show, it might already be available by the time you hear this podcast. We put this podcast up in the morning hours on the West Coast, but it's likely midday on the East Coast by the time this podcast gets up here on Friday, because I did the overnight show last night, and hopefully you heard that,

or you'll go back and hear the podcast. And then then I just kind of hang out for a few hours, have some downtime, and take care of some stuff, some notes in the studio, and then eventually go back into the studio and here we are Abracadabra hocus Pocus, the fifth hour Friday Podcast. As Mike Tomlin would say, you probably don't want to know how we make the hot Talks, but the comm waters let's start with that. So this week no real hiccups. Mentioned last week on this podcast

the after Show. I guess this case it would be the before show podcast. I said last week the after Show, But this podcast goes up before the show The Betty Versus the Petty Show starts running. So it's a different kind of subgenre. But we do break down every episode and we have an exclusive behind the scenes peak at what's going on with the making of the TV show

shaking up the Idiot Box the boob Tube television. So it's week three of the NFL as mentioned, and the way we start getting the show ready now it's pretty much every day there's something for the show leading into the recording of the show. Now the game's always played, most of them on Sunday, and then there's a Monday night game and just kind of let you behind the scenes here and show you what I'm doing to get ready for the following week. By the way, all of

this work has not exactly paid off yet. All of this work has not paid off, just so we reach an understanding here. Despite the amount of time that goes into this, yet still some issues with the picks and so you'll hear about that on the TV show today. The good news is the Penny is also writing the Vomit comet. So Sunday you're actually watching the games. I'll be at a game this weekend. I'll beat the RAM forty nine er game, so I'll be hanging out there,

but I'll be watching in the press box. I'll be watching some other West Coast games, and I'll get there early and watch the East Coast game. So I'll be busy and not that it matters, but I'll be busy and so watching all the games. But here's the thing. So the way the preparation goes, they have the look aheadline, which is a big tool that if you're not using in your own handicapping, you should be using. Like if you're kind of new at this and you're like, I

don't know, is that I don't have no idea. It's really a simple concept. So the sports books, they already have the numbers out for week four, it's called the look aheadline, and the way it works the there's certain websites you can find it on the internet, but for example, not this week, but next week. The week kicks off with the Cowboys and the Giants. That's the Thursday game. So you can look up the point spread as of

before Week three and all the other matchups. For example, in week four, the primetime game on Sunday Night is Buffalo and Baltimore. You also have two Monday night games in Week four Titans and Dolphins, Lions and Seahawks. So it's gonna be another busy, busy week in the mL. But there are lines out on all these games, and so what you look for is some kind of overreaction. You look at the lines, you file them away, and then we play the games on Sunday and Monday, and

then they update the lines. So you look at the numbers and you're like, you just look for abnormalities, is what you're looking for. You're like, for example, I'm trying to think of something that would stand out here in Week three, there is one that really stands out, the Saints Eagles game. The Eagles on the look aheadline were two and a half point favorites on the road in New Orleans, and then they went out and they had a clunker lost late against the team from Atlanta with

Kirk Cousins, so they adjusted the line. Plus the Saints kicked the snot out of the Dallas Cowboys, so the look aheadline was Philly minus two and a half. But they have adjusted the line five points. As of this recording of the Fifth Hour podcast, the updated line I have is New Orleans favored by two and a half at home. So that is a major line shift of five points. Like a lot of these games will move half a point or a point, but to move that,

that's a rather drastic, rather drastic turn of events. And there's nothing else on the board this weekend that is that dramatic. We've had some one point moves. We've had some other games like the Lions was a two point move. The Lions got beat by Tampa Bay at home. They can't stop the passing game. They have a very weird defense because Aiden Hutchinson is an absolute monster up front, and yet the secondary for the Lions has been absolutely gouged.

We'll talk about that on today's episode of Benny Versus the Penny and so the Cardinals, who don't have a particularly great team, but they can move the ball through the air with Marvin Harrison Junior the stud wide receiver. So that game moved a couple of points. Other than that, I don't see any anything major. I did see a look ahead line where the Raiders were going to be

favored by a fair amount over the Panthers. That line opened at four and a half, but that was after the news that came down that they were changing quarterbacks. Is they didn't have a quarterback. They were the headless Panthers of Carolina. So those are some of the things we look for. The way it works during the week, usually Sunday night, I kind of go over the matchup card for the following week, and I don't write in pen I pencil in what I like, and generally I'm

always with the underdogs. But then I'm looking to where the value is the projected value with the teams that are favored, Like I'm missing something, is this something that I'm not seeing? And then in addition to that, you're monitoring where the money is coming in on you're monitoring the public money, which is the tickets that are bet

the volume. And then you're looking at the amount of money, which is often referred to as the sharp money because the money is the sharp thing, and you're looking for abnormalities in that where the wise guys are on one team and the public is on another. And one of those examples would be this weekend, the Bears and the Colts. So the wise guys it's pretty even, but there's a slight edge with the Sharps taking the Chicago Bears, and

the Bears are a one point dog at Indianapolis. The public, though, it's over sixty percent in favor of the Colts, so the public is in favor of Indianapolis, who cannot stop cannot stop the run at all, and Anthony Richardson is struggling to complete He's under fifty percent of his passes at this particular point. Anything else where, it's really obvious a lot of the games the public and the wise gamblers agree, so there's not a lot of those. Usually

there's a couple a week. Then you also look for the lopsided game where it's just completely upsided. For example, the game that is totally out of sorts this weekend is not until Monday, and there's two games on Monday Night, but the Commanders and the Bengals on that Monday Night game,

Monday Night card. Here in week three, the Bengals coming off a close loss against Kansas City, and you look at that as a ninety over ninety percent the information that we have here, over ninety percent of the sharp money and then the tickets is in favor of the Bengals at seven and a half, that's a big number. Washington is a terrible football team, but they can move the ball a little bit. The problem is they have very long, time consuming drives and is that a letdown

spot for the Bengals. And a lot of this stuff we're going to cover on Benny Versus depending. We don't get to every game. It's only a half hour TV show. It's only a half hour TV show, so we can't get to everything. But that's how it works. And so I look at all that stuff, and then Tuesday is really a day where I spend a lot of my time looking at trends and angles. Then Wednesday the injury report.

First injury report comes out, but you're also monitoring the reports from the different news sites, the reporters who are reporting on guys missing practice or guys that are dinged up that are not expected to play because a lot of coaches news conferences are Monday, and then you know, Tuesday usually a day off, Monday, Tuesday, whatever one of

those days is off, and so for the players. But usually Wednesday the injury report comes out and you kind of look at that, and then Wednesday is the day that the show is put together with Viny the producer in Boston, and John and the guys, and so I spend a good amount of the morning after the show.

I put everything together and mostly email correspondence these days and text messaging and things like that, and so we'll I'll send over everything that I have, I'll send over my picks, and then I don't know what the penny's picking. I go into it blind and then we find out. Obviously, we do the show on Thursday and we find out what's going on. So we had a relatively calm week, calm waters on the show, which was good and it's pretty cool. It was a flipping good time. We had

Tom Looney. There were a couple of incidents with the prompter. We call Looney the prompter rompter cause Looney kind of like Resident Trump from back in the day where you heard stories where President Trump would be when he was doing speeches, he would have everything written out in the prompter and then just let it rip right, just improv and add the stuff. And Looney does the same thing. Like Looney will do the same same deal, or like he has copy written for him, but then he'll add on.

You know, he'll try to touch up his own work. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. I would say the person that has it the most difficult is the guy at NBC Sports Boston who has to keep the prompter going and know when to pose it because of cause of Looney. Yeah, that's not an easy job. I don't I don't have a prompter on my side. I am ownnatural, which is a lot of memory, trying to remember everything, and I often forget a lot of the things that I wanted to get on the show.

And you know that going it's kind of like a radio show, and most of the stuff that you prepared doesn't actually ever make the show, whether it's radio or TV, especially the TV show, because it's only half an hour and we have to move. We have to keep the show moving, the train must keep moving and all that

and so that's part of the deal as well. But Looney is the prompter rapter, and it reminds me of absolutely not going to compare it to this, but one of the great stories I ever heard about someone who just ad libbed it and Looney does not add libit, but had a speech was Martin Luther King. One of the great speeches in American history, the I have a Dream speech, which I think most of that now has tried. The new wave is to try to debunk all of

those things that Martin Luther King had said. Right, we're in a period of time. That's a third rile on mine, that's a third riyal, what are you doing? But it seems like a lot of stuff that's been going on in the last couple years kind of goes against that speech. But anyway, he gave the speech in Washington, DC, and famous speech, you know, I have a dream and all that and legendary, and supposedly he did not he had the speech copied, but he just he had lived it.

And then the famous story was he was walking off the stage and he gave the I have a Dream speech to this young guy who was working security at this big event in Washington, d C. And it was somebody that turned out to be a college basketball player and a coach, and George Raveling was the guy's name, And when I was a kid, he was a coach and had successful career in basketball, and he happened to have a copy. Last I checked, I haven't heard anything new. I don't know if he sold it. I don't even

know if he's still around. He was old years ago. But George Rattling, I think he's still around. Last I heard, he was still around. But he had a copy of that. But Martin Luther King did not actually use the speech, like just he just let it rip and gave it to the security guys here. I don't need that. So that's the way that went. I mentioned Calm Waters on the TV show. There was one incident that took place post TV show where we had keys please, and so

we're packing up our stuff. We have that moment where you feel like, man, this is really cool. Another show, The Baby's to Bed. We finished the show. Now it's the time for them to edit it and they've got to put it together and send it out on satellites or whatever they use to send the show out. Probably all internet base now, so like, oh man, this is awesome, right the show, the show is done, our work for the week is done. I'm then like okay. So then

I'm processing everything. I'm like okay. So I got a long drive in traffic, rush hour traffic to get back to the Malor mansion. I've been up for a very long time, so I have to sleep. So I'm gonna get maybe three hours of sleep if I'm lucky. And then I got to get up because I got to get some stuff done for the radio show. And then I got to watch the game Thursday night NFL game and all that stuff. I got to try to probably eat something somewhere in there too, So I got all that.

But on our way out when I'm I'm not taking off my church my temple clothes, but I'm on our way out. What we did is, you know, we say goodbye to everybody and all that. We have a little post me and Looney have We have the table read before the show, and then we have a post show kind of wrap up. We bull show each other and talk about what we liked or we didn't like, that kind of thing. So you know, we're doing that, and then we're getting ready to leave the studio there at

Universal Studios and to go to the park. I think it's the appen in Costello Parking Lot. I believe, heyway whatever. So we're getting ready to walk out of there, and Looney's in a tizzy and he's like, keys place, he can't find his keys? So how do you lose your key? I mean, what are you doing? So he's scrambling around, he's running around like a banshee, trying to find find his keys, like the Tasmanian devil. And eventually he retraced

the steps and he did find the keys. And as always we always like to say, the keys in the last place he looked, the keys in the last place he looks, because they're always in the last place you look. Because he stopped looking after that, right all right now, the horror Man's or the blind Man's Banksy when you watch today's episode of the TV show, and even our blind listeners will be able to see this, So blind Emmied blind Scott in Boston, all you guys, you'll be

able to see this. So the shirt that Looney wore, he had a different shirt that he was gonna wear, but it didn't show up on the camera because we're really shot from the waist up, and not even the waist up, it's really like the middle of our chest up. That's all you see on camera. So Looney, he brought the shirt and he didn't like it because it didn't show enough of the shirt on camera. So he had

a backup shirt. But the backup shirt looked like it was a rip off Banksy shirt, like street art, like somebody had taken a can of spray paint and sprayed

Looney shirt with like different random colors. It was very bizarre, and yeah, you got to see it to believe it, but trust me, it's like it's like a white shirt, but it looks and I don't know if it will show up on camera like this, but seeing Looney on a table read and then seeing him, you know, obviously on camera on my end in the in the box that they have the feed, it was like, dude, what are you doing? I mean, my good now I'm starving

this week. I am the man in black. I am the man in black this week at least shirt wise. So there is that. So again, thank you for watching. You guys have been great. I really means the world to me. That you guys who have and you know who you are listening to this podcast and you've you've gone out of your way. I've gotten emails from people saying, hey, I didn't have Peacock. You know, it wasn't one of the streaming services I have. I have it now because of the show. And that means a lot to me,

because I mean, that's awesome. So I mean you're spending money, which you don't probably have a lot of, right, so I thank you. Nobody has enough money unless you're like Elon Musk or something. So and I'm pretty sure he's not a fan. Pretty sure he's not a fan. So anyway, thank you, and we'll see how it goes today and again it's all over the NBC regional cable networks. Benny Versus the Penny. It's Week three, episode four of our TV show picking every game against the spread, and on Peacock.

We're on the peacock. I was attracted to the giant metal cock. It's one of those birds going little foody fun for you, foody fun. Let's do it by request. We haven't done this in a couple of weeks. Some food items. I'll give you a few of them are not going to give you all these taco bell The big cheese It is back and exciting news. This actually starts today. It's September twenty, so it starts today. You can buy it a la carte for one dollar, one dollar,

one dollar. Yes, now what is this? It is a supersized cracker sixteen times the normal cheese it size and it is back. There you go, So a gigantic, enormous cheese it on steroids can be yours, can be yours solo one dollar, and they say that you can make your own cheesy inventions with the item. So there is that. McDonald's debuting new breakfast wraps for our friends in Canada.

Oh coda. And the reason we bring this up for obvious an obvious reason is these items, if they sell well in Canada, will be coming to a mickey D's near you. They have new items. The sausage, bacon and egg breakfast rap, the chicken breast wrap, the spicy egg and hash brown breakfast rap can also be yours at mickey D's in Canada. So those three items, knew the man.

And what else stood out? I'm trying to see anything that really pops here there's a lot of Halloween items themed stuff that's popped up here, a lot of pumpkin pumpkin spice stuff. It's who's buying. Is it mostly like chicks that are bout? Like women? Are men into the pumpkin spice stuff? I don't know. I know Krispy Kreme is bringing back pumpkin spice original glazed donuts that is

this weekend, by the way, today through Sunday. So if you're into that, you better get to your favorite restaurant there, your favorite location and shout down it looks all right. Not not really leaving my seat to go there. Burger King they're still around. They are launching a week of freebies and deals, a bunch of perks returning available for Royal Perk members on the bk app. Okay, I'm not part of that, so that I'm out on that. They also had a Adams Family menu that includes includes a

bright purple burger. Yeah, you can get a bright purple burger. It's a lot of fun. Now you can look at it that way, or you can say that's how the burgers actually look before they docted them up. Yeah, you can go there as well. Domino's adding macaroni and cheese bowls Hello to the menu for the first time. That's a big step at Dominoes. Big step Arby's, I know Danny g loves Arby's. Arby's has launched a new tailgate meal with new tailgate turnover for football season. That's a

limited time item at Rby's. Way to go. All right, So that's enough for the Foodie Fund and so stop your complaining. Time now for the phrase of the week, and to phrase the week. On this Friday, the twentieth of September is Luck of the Irish. Now it's say college football weekend and tomorrow, tomorrow, I will be watching college football. Now I am accused by some of not being into the college football game because we don't talk about it much on the radio show. But that's because

of when we're on. That's because of when we're on. So I do watch a fair amount on Saturday afternoon, and I really skim the games. I skim the games. Now. Notre Dame will be playing tomorrow at three point thirty eastern on and B see. They will be taking on Miami, but not that Miami, Miami of Ohio, which I think is where Ben Roethlisberger went, if I remember anyway, Notre Dame is a twenty eight point favorite in that game.

They open at twenty six, twenty eight point favorite, which is rather shocking now, I considering that they lost to a school that they normally Northern Illinois, that you just assumed they would win by a gazillion. So would you take Notre Dame and the points or would you go the other direction? I'm looking at the money here. The

public is loading up on Notre Dame. The wise guys, it's a little more even a little more even on that if you look at the gambling numbers, and also the other game I want to keep an eye on, which is I think at the same time UCLA and LSU, just because UCLA will likely lose this game by four or five touchdowns, and then Brian Finley numbnuts has to do the postgame talk show and say it's not that bad.

So I look forward to that. Now, as far as the Notre Dame things concerned, that ties into the phrames of the week, which is luck of the Irish. Now is the phrase luck of the Irish about Notre Dame? No, No, it is not. Does it originate in Ireland. Well not really, not really, does it come from sports? No, what if I told you that it comes from gambling, that luck of the Irish comes from gambling. But it was also a derogatory term that was used in the early days.

I say early days for me, it's the early days of America, nineteenth century mining, going down the Oregon Trail heading to the West. The phrase is believed to have originated during the American gold Rush, the runout to California, where things like Denhim Jeans and the one Armed bandit the slot machine were invented because of the gold rush.

But the American gold Rush, many of the most successful miners were Irishmen or Irish Americans that had found their wealth and they just knew where to look for gold, and they found a lot of it. And the phrase was used to describe the miners' success as being due to a lack of skill. But and it didn't work hard, No, No,

they just had the luck of the Irish. Right, there was the luck of the Irish, and the implication rather obvious, even for those of you in the back of the room, that the Irish were only able to succeed through luck. Now there is a tie in if you go all the way back to like Celtic mythology, the tie into the Leprechaun, the Irish leprechaun, the small green man who lives in Boston and is known as Lucky little Leprechaun and calls our radio show and would supposedly guard a

pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And so the leprechaun is considered lucky. But the phrase luck of the Irish goes back again to the gold rush. That is the phrase of the week, and that'll put the end of this podcast. Remember Benny versus the Penny all day to day. It's every other hour somewhere it's wild. It's wild and crazy on in LA on Saturday, New York, Boston, Philly, San Francisco, many other stations. I don't even know where it's airing. I don't have all the affiliates. And also

we do know nationally streaming on Peacock. Help us out, please, we need all the help. Every You might think, oh, come on, I don't Matt, trust me your matter And if you can convince people in your no one lives alone, no one's a hermit, right, you have people that you're around at some point, relatives, co workers, whatever it might be. And if you can encourage them to watch The show Man, that would be cool. May and that would be awesome and on the on peacock or cable, and that would

help us out. Anyway, I have a wonderful rest of your Friday. Don't forget Danny g should be back with me on Saturday, and then on Sunday he'll be with me again. He's scheduled to be with me for the mail bag. So we'll talk to you next time. And as Danny would say, later, skater asta pasta. Did I do it right? I gotta murder. I gotta go