Cut booms.
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.
The clearing House of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
In the air eywhere and welcome into another weekend of the Fifth Hour with me Ben and over there is Danny, and we're hanging out here on Normally on Fridays we kind of futs around with the holidays and all that. But this is kind of a big holiday today, being the twenty ninth day of March and this being Easter weekend. So I think we know the big holiday today. It's
Good Friday, Danny. Maybe people celebrating Good Friday. The odd thing to me, though, is that there's other holidays on this date that are just that that it's just the way it is. There's Mermaid Day today. I don't know how you celebrate Mermaid. I've been to the Mermaid in Minnesota. There was the bar we went to and had the malor meet and greet was at the Mermaid.
Makes me think of the old Tom Hanks movie Mermaid.
Yeah, I remember that. It's National Smoking Mirrors Day, like our podcast about Yeah, smoking mirrors, deceptive, Yeah, magic illusions. Tony Bruno used to use that line all the time when he worked at Fox Sports Radio. Who Smoking Mirrors? Talking about smoking mirrors quite a bit? National?
Was it?
Niagara Falls runs dry day today? So that's that. I can I can read more if you want. It's now I've been to night. Have you you've been in i Or Falls? Haven't you?
No?
I've been there right on the border with Canada, Ontario. It said, commemorates the time Niagara Falls ran dry because of ice blocking the falls in eighteen forty eight. Okay, the thing that pulls me away about Niagara Falls is it's very impressive and it's cool and you go on the boat and they give you a rain slicker and you go out there and you get a little wet and it's cool. But the thing about Nigroa Falls is that they can turn it on and off, which is
wild to me, Like they have the technology there. This thing was formed twelve thousand years ago at the end of the ice age, and they have the ability to flip a switch and then that's it. We're good, We're done. That's all she wrote.
Do you know how they are capable of doing that?
I don't. They mentioned it when I was there, but I don't know. I don't remember exactly what they do. But they have a way of directing icually, they must direct the water away.
Or they were a hotline to god.
Hey, yeah, they make a phone call.
Can you put your karate chop hand down right now?
Yeah? They call the they call the you know, the authorities, the proper authorities, and the phone calls are made and then then and then that's that. Uh So, I didn't want to get into a few things here. Baseball season beginning yesterday. The Dawyers, the big Blue wrecking crew, looking pretty good in Game one against the Cardinals. But see, the thing that's it's upsetting is they they're gonna win one hundred games again. But it doesn't really factor into
what they're going to do in the playoffs. And it's still fun to watch though, well, I mean it's enjoyable. They're killing people and they'll do a lot of that. The other thing about the Dodgers is that they're going to beat so most of the teams in blowouts. They're not going to be in that many close games. If they're in a lot of close games, they've had a bad year, you know what I'm saying. They're you're going to win by three or four runs in most of
the games. But that's not how it goes in the playoffs. So then that's another issue. Right. So it's like, you know, I'm looking for things to complain about, Danny, I'm looking for things to grumble about, and the Dodgers look like there's just going to be an absolute big blue recon crew and dominate all year.
No, you do bring up a good point. Yesterday afternoon, Coveno and Rich were talking about as long as you stay above water, your head above water, you are a little bit above five hundred going into All Star weekend. Really, the stretch run is what matters the most in Major League Baseball because we've seen it time and time again, the teams that go on a run late in the season and have your favorite word, the momentum going in.
Now, there's no such thing as though there is confidence. In the last two years in baseball, a number six seed got to the World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies, and this past year it was the the Arizona Diamondbacks. Couple of years you've seen teams that were at the bottom, last team in, but you really have to stink to not make the playoffs six of you do the math on this. There's fourteen teams in each league, right, there's six of the fourteen get in, three division winners and
three wildcards. So you have to be you know, you have to be pretty bad not to make it.
But we will.
We'll see how it plays. And there's always the wild card of show. Hey Otani and what's gonna happen? Do the Feds find something? Is there something to find about Otani? It's a bad sign. We mentioned this on the Overnight Show last night, Danny. It's it's a bad sign that he hired one of Harvey Weinstein's fixers. Immediately. That is not a good sign. I mean that is, you know, the guy Otani got contact his agent got contacted by the La Times saying hey, we got something on your
guy that he's involved in some gambling. Then the they get a phone call from this Manhattan fixer that is the like the top New York Hollywood fixer, and he's the guy. Remember when Johnny Depp a couple of years ago got he was dragged through the mud because of that. Amber heard trial that that's the guy, the guy that Otani hires, the guy that cleaned up Johnny Depp. Alec Baldwin has been involved in some stuff. I mean, this guy is a legend in entertainment and you know New York, LA,
that's the guy O Taani higher. Like again, it is one of these things like what are you doing? It's is there something there? Why are you acting like there's something there? And maybe there's nothing there.
At least Johnny Depp came out clean on the other side of that whole thing.
Remember, Yeah, people saw the trial and Amber heard. They realized she's kind of messed up. You know, she got some It would appear she has some issues. Most people seem to think, at least, as I recall, is heard, there you go, it could be his Otani's Amber heard. So I had an interesting week this week. Yesterday I decided a multitask. I thought I would get some exercise in I had been requested in New Zealand on a sports radio show. They wanted to talk about the Sweet sixteen.
They want to talk about this, the basketball playoffs in the NBA that were coming up and opening Day. They were like, wow, this is a big time in American sports. We want you to come on in Auckland, New Zealand. So I said, all right, whatever, but I wanted to get some steps in, so I was like, oh, I'll go out and fill a walk and then I don't know exactly when they're going to want me, so i'll be I'll just walk around and then we had a
rough time the producers. I think we'll have you on you know what else sounds like fine, whatever, I'll just walk and then when they call me, I'll pull off to the side and I'll do it. And it's a beautiful day in southern California, just perfect spring day, not too cold, not too hot. It's wonderful. So I'm walking la la la. Phone phone rings, you know, we we use on the international thing they use the WhatsApp. Is that what it's called the Yeah, yeah it is. So
I never use it unless they call me. So they're like, well, we had a clearer connection on the WhatsApp. So I say, whatever, fund so uh, guy calls up and said, we're just gonna have you for a few minutes, no problem. I said, sure, no problem. I don't ask me anything.
I don't care.
H So I pulled off this side. Now I'm walking like on a trail and I pull off to the side. So then they're asking me in the usual standard stuff and I'm like, okay, whatever, you know, I'm busting. I'm throwing out you know, silly words and you know, having fun and goofing around. And there was one moment where I got very lucky because they they they knew I know nothing about the local beloved sport in New Zealand, which is like Rugby, so I really know much about that.
But they were like doing some bit where they were opening something up because it was even though I did this yesterday, it was it was Friday, so I've already been on in New Zealand radio on Friday because because we did this yesterday, but the time difference. So anyways, the guy's like, hey, I'm opening this like this Easter egg, and in the middle of the egg is a team name from one of the New Zealand teams, and he says, I know you're in America and you don't know anything
about this. Can you name one of the teams in this league? So what I did is I channeled no stradamas As. You know, I'm a distant relative of no Stra Damas and friend of Nostradenas, so I channeled this. And you mean Nicodema's right, No, no, no, that's that's that's your friend. But so Dan, in my head, I'm like, I'm trying to use the process of elimination. I'm like, what is the most popular team names around the world. So I'm thinking, well, in America, it's a lot of bulldogs.
There's a lot of that wildcats, but I don't think that's as popular around the world. Dogs and wildcats. And then for some reason, I pulled this out of my tookes. I said Warriors and they were shocked. They were like blown away by that because that's apparently the national team is called the Warriors there, and they were like unbelievable.
But I don't know if I had that subliminally in my head, because during the pandemic, when I was so desperate to find anything to watch, I fell down a rabbit hole where I was watching like Ozzie Rules football New Zealand rugby stuff during the pandemic. But that's been four years. Yeah, so it's been.
It was in between your Marvel competitions.
I did do marble racing monologues, which I'm very proud of and I should have won a Marconi Award for that. It's embarrassing that I did not. But so I'm doing this and then they were very happy I answered that, and so we're going back and forth. They even asked me about hockey and I'm like, oh man, that's a tough one. But I tried to answer it. I was able to use bulk fucky to get through that. So then we're going back and forth and then all of
a sudden, lights and sirens. He remember, I'm outside. I'm outside. I'm doing this outside and there was a fire truck that decided they had to go to a I guess a fire cherry tops. Lights, sirens poom. So they're like they didn't realize I was outside. They're like, what is going on? There was like a big big to do. Well, you know, I don't know exactly what's going on, but
maybe they're coming to get me. And then they were like, well, we know you Americans don't like US, US down here in our us Kiwi's And I was like, eh, I don't know, do we does America not like New Zealand. I have nothing against New Zealand.
I've never heard anything bad about New Zealand. I think they were talking.
About the politics, which are messed up. But my opinion, politics are messed up pretty much everywhere. So but yeah, it was kind of I was like, yeah, you know, like some of the stuff about US, I was like, ah, I'm fine, I'm good that guy. I got nothing. I got nothing bad to say about that. You know, nothing nothing bad.
Blank my blank and blank you.
That was my my chat with our friends. I also did something I haven't done very often. I haven't done this in years. I got a request to be the focal point of a I guess we'll call it give me Liberty or give me a podcast. So I spoke at Liberty University remotely. I didn't actually go to Virginia, but I smoke. I spoke over I did like a video conference thing.
You're gonna say you smoked with the kids.
I did, but it's I don't think you're allowed to smoke at that school, or you will be struck by lightning because it's a high falutin religious place. But anyway, so this kid will emailed me, Hey, I'm a senior. I'm going to graduate in May, and I want to I want to do what you do, and I want to I want to be in radio, television, whatever. So I'd love to have a conversation and recorded for my senior projects. So I was like, all right, this is exciting,
so give me Liberty, give me the podcast. So I went on with him, and he asked me a bunch of questions. But then I got I got into a bit of a tussle with him, Danny, because he's a fan of a team I don't like in basketball, and that annoyed me. But then he absolutely gave me the atomic elbow because he was asking me about my career
and I was like, well, I worked, you know. I was talking about some of the places I worked, and then I was like, well, I started a Fox Sports radio in like two thousand, in the end of two thousand, in early two thousand and one, and then I worked, blah blah, I going through the whole thing. He's like, you've been there longer than I've been alive.
Off the top rope.
Oh, just get me a body bag. I mean it was just vicious. Oh I mean, oh, and he's he's talking about like it was a little kid watching Kobe Bryant for the Lake. I'm like, oh, man, I was at those games. They're like, oh crap, you know. I was like, that's pretty pretty crazy. But it was fun. I had a good time doing it.
And yeah, and I feel like you and I Ben, we lived in an era that kids loved to look at, in which they had seen it with their own eyes, you know what I mean. Like, Yeah, music was better, movies were better. Some of our athletes were stars that kids right now can't even comprehend.
Yeah, everything changed with social media. There's a lot more famous people now, but they're not nearly as famous as the people we were.
Yeah, they're stupid famous like influencers.
Yeah exactly. Like there's people that claim to have and maybe they do, hundreds of thousands, millions of followers and you have no idea who they are. They could walk right in front of you back and forth on a catwalk and you're like, who, whether they're on TikTok? Well yeah, I know, but what why are they famous? While they eat sandwiches. They eat sandwiches, and they you know, they wear jewelry. I'm like, well, okay, and that whole world.
Man.
I again, I go back to my long standing position, it would be my dying position that it is all the matrix. It is all the matrix. It's all the algorithms and the you know, the the hand picked influencers and all that. It's you know, take the blue pill. The story ends, a lot of people love to take the other pill. They like to stay and take the red pill and just stay in in wonderland. But you know, the kid from Liberty was he seemed like he has
a good mindset. I was trying to he was asking for advice, and I was like, well, it's a lot different now than when I got into the business, because when I got into the business, the one path you had to be an intern and you had to network, and you had to work your way up at the bottom. And I don't know that you necessarily have to do that now, but I'm I was like, that's to me, that makes sense. But you can also get your own following and do a YouTube thing or something like that,
or a podcast, and I create your own brand. And see how that works. Now, speaking of your own brand, I don't know that I mentioned this on the podcast. If I did, Dany just kick me in the nuts and I will stop. But I saw this recently and I'd forgotten about it. I don't think we brought it up on the podcast The Top forty. Did we talk about the Top forty in radio and how that began?
No?
I don't think we did, right, No, not with me. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I didn't do that with the Vegan Yeah, so yeah, I don't think I did. So. I saw this recently and it caught my attention. I was like, I wanted to highlight it because I think it's one of those interesting, cool stories that will like because we're both radio nerds. But then the people that listen to this are they're into it, right, You listen to a podcast a spin off of the Overnight Show, so you got to be a little bit into it,
I would think. So the history of Top forty radio, how did it begin? And this is still a popular format, not that music radio is doing particularly great, but even the streaming services they do a version of the Top forty. I don't know if they call it that I don't if they're allowed to call that. So Top forty radio
started in Omaha, Nebraska, of all places. Didn't start in New York, didn't started in LA didn't start at some music revolution in some small grunge place in Seattle or Portland, Oregon. It started in Omaha, Nebraska's where it began. And the story is. And I was like, this is kind of ridiculous when somebody told me it. And then I went and I looked, did a little research, filled down a rabbit hole. I was like, oh, that's actually true. Get to the point, please. So this guy that ran the
radio station, this guy Todd, we'll call him. He ran the radio station in Omaha, and it was the lowest rated radio station in Omaha. They had no one listening. No one was listening. So he and his program director they were out of the local sawdust joint in a spit and saw us joint, and they noticed at this local bar in Omaha that the jukebox they only played a couple of songs. They kept playing the same songs,
and they had this epiphany. The guy that was the program I was like, wait a minute here, and so he went over and they looked up what was being played on. They looked at the play sheet on the jukebox and it was like they took the top thirty songs. They later added ten more to make it to the top forty, and then they just started playing those and those are the only songs they played. And all of a sudden, they just played the same songs. They were
popular songs. And that station went from dead last in the market in the ratings in Omaha, and they became the number one station in a very short amount of time because of that. And that was the This is in the late fifties, I believe, I think it was nineteen fifties. By the early nineteen sixties, it was in every market, every single radio market, at top forty radios.
And you do not like this, to hate that formatt with a passion, actually, because my argument with general managers was always well, obviously fast forward to the digital age, my argument was always kids and adults listening have way more songs in their iPod than what you're trying to let me play off my playlist. Come on, we have to be the experts in music and have a big
music library. So it's that radio station's fault, I guess that you see and I understand, and when it's a small sample size, when people only listen for a couple of minutes, and that would be programmers across the country. That was their argument for years. Well, the average person listens for five minutes and thirty seconds, So we're gonna play the same song three times in one hour? What about the radio heads like us and our listeners who like to listen for long stretches.
No, I hear you. It is an odd quirk about human beings. Though. The same thing happened back when everyone had cable television, that people would have two hundred channels, and the average number of channels that people actually watched is about twelve. Even though they have all these options, it's a very small number of things that you actually you actually are here.
Yeah, but for those couple of channels I watch, I want a lot of variety on each of those channels in that genre that I like. I don't want Ridiculousness on MTV playing back to back to back to back to back episodes. You know that that's their trick. Now they do like a Ridiculousness marathon and that's all they play all weekend, is just that show. Over and over.
But we have seen to play Devil's advocate Danny. We have seen when streaming services will release a series, they'll do a drop and people will just sit there and binge watch that show. I know it's different episodes, but they'll binge watch. Yeah, like all of Saturday. They'll watch every freaking episode of some show.
Yeah, I gotta get all the episodes change if it was the same episode over and over again. And you know, I Hey, I built my FM career off of breaking new songs and new artists and having a big fat library. When competition in my marketplace in southern California had fifty five songs they rotated, I had five thousand songs in my library, and so my station was known for digging deep and so the music heads and all the people who really loved music gravitated to my station and we
saw huge ratings because of it. So it works both ways.
Yeah, I know it does. I'm trying to think like the music that I and I'm not a music guy, but you're the music I'm not. But when I do listen to music when I'm getting ready for the show, but I've like crappy classical music, which nobody else listens to other than me, and then it's kind of background this, but then I'm out walk.
You're a Johnny Cash fan, so you're good.
I do love Johnny Cash.
I love the Man in Black, and yeah, I told Lorrena that, by the way, I was like, play Metallica for Eddie once in a while and play Johnny Cash every week for big bands.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, sure, and so but the songs I do, I'll concede dandy. I get burned out. I get burned out. Like there's some songs back in the old days that were great songs, but I've heard them so many times i just fast forward through them because it's like I've already I've heard that enough. I can i can check out of this life. And I'm good. I've heard that song. I know how it.
Goes, and yeah, you know. I would hold weekly music meetings with not just my staff. I would invite some listeners every week and in our conference room we would play the music on some nice speakers. I would cater the lunch with free food for everybody that came, and I'd let them vote on the songs that were getting burned out and the new songs. And it's interesting because there's certain songs where you hear it more than ten times,
you start liking it even more. And then there are songs where you hear it more than ten times, and each time you hear it, you like it less.
Isn't that the old was that the Limbaugh trick or the Howard Stern trick where somebody would call up and like, I don't like your show, and they'd be like, well, give me two weeks and then make your decision right, because if you do something for two weeks, you formed the habit right, and then you're more likely not all
the time, but more. He actually takes about sixty days to form a real habit, but two weeks he's kind of do it, and he's part of your routine and you listen and all that, and you're like, I'm good, I'll tune in. This is part of my part of my deal turned out for the phrase all the Louis phrase of the week, and I am happy to report Danny that we have a request for the phrase of the week.
And usually you're like, Casey Caseum, right now.
Play the hits. Yes, that's right, the great Casey Caseum we had one of the producers, one of the young producers, was in.
Tempo record Yeah Dying, and I was I was trying to explain, like I was like, oh yeah, me and Eddie were telling the famous Casey casem story.
Were almost killed Casey but he is dead now and uh. And this guy had no idea who Casey. Case was like, this is you know, yeah, I mean Casey's been dead for a while. I get it, but that guy was such a huge deal in music radio.
And if your parents did not teach you about Casey Kaseum, they need to be disowned.
Keep your feet on the ground, keep reaching for the stuff. But anyway, so this request from Mike, a loyal podcast minion. He's a cub fan from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Fort Wayne used to have an NBA team back in the day, Fort Wayne, and he said, with the start of the baseball season, he thought it would be appropriate if we could look up the origin of a can of corn cannicorn. You know what that is any baseball right canicorn? Basic play routine play the phrase a can of corn. It originated,
you know what? It started at the grocery store. How about that? The legend is the term can of corn not a baseball term. Not a baseball term. It started as a term from the grocery business. And back in the old days, these giant grocery stores, they'd have cans at the very top, and to pull down the cans, the can goods from the very high shelves, they used
a hook. They had a system where they used hooks because they couldn't reach and so they had a hook and then they'd pull the can and the can would fall and they'd put their apron out to catch the can. And so system from I know, right, it was kind of hokey, but they yeah. If you can imagine, like some classic right out of Hollywood, shopkeeper at a grocery store with an apron on and somebody say, can I get that can of corn. It's at the very top.
I can't reach it, No problem, sir. Let me get my trusty hook and I'll go over there and I'll pull the can down and then they use their apron to catch it like a flyball in baseball. And that is how the term it spread to baseball. But it is interesting to note to Mike and fort Wayne from the research that I did, the phrase can of corn didn't originate until the ninth teen thirties. It was first recorded in the nineteen thirties. Baseball started in the eighteen sixties,
so I think late eighteen sixties. So that means that the phrase can of corn was not used in baseball because it wasn't part of baseball. It wasn't something that was regularly used for the first sixty or sixty five years of baseball's existence, right, and then after that it was used. So anyway, the phrase of the week can of corn the phrase of the week thanks to Mike in four Wayne, if you have a phrase, you're curious about it, you want to hear us.
Yeah, that's pretty cool because I remember Vince. I remember Vin Scully using that.
Vincent Scully, Great, Vin Scully, throw your sombrero in the air.
Dang it, I miss Vin Scully.
Man.
Yeah, it's not the same same.
It's not.
I'm not here to rip anybody, as you know, Danny, but which means I'm about to rip someone.
I know where you're headed. I agree with you.
I don't necessarily have the sound up when I'm watching a Dodger game on TV. Let's just put it that way. About that, all right? Is that fair to say?
There's good moments and some moments with radio and TV with the Dodgers. Right now, it's just not really you know, but it's a hard act to follow. It's like, you know, when you finally pass over, who's gonna replace you on the legendary overnights. It's never gonna live up to the Mallard. I know.
I already know can of soup is.
Going to replace me.
I've already had it happen. The soup will be and that is what's going to happen. So I've already seen that.
Movie, David, I like from all of the best moments from the daytime show. Yes, yes, and it'll take veto four hours to put it all together, and he.
Will not be paid any more money, but yes.
And he will revolt within one month and then dollars ashes will be put back on the counter in the main studio exactly.
So they now that was a rip off. What was the show? I don't think that shows on anymore.
They tried to know it was e television suit.
Yeah yeah, okay, so they try to copy that, Yeah, but that's not on right, they.
Got No, I don't think it's there any longer. Of course, in its heyday it was Greg kinnear. Oh yeah, yeah, who became a famous actor. That's right, still a famous actor.
He's not dead, no, just not really doing much, right, What if those guys make enough money, they don't have to do anything.
Yeah, he's a multi millionaire, multi multi millionaire now, yeah.
Just like us radio guys.
Yeah, exactly.
They play his old shows.
And they started on E and you and I started on FM radio station. Same thing.
It's all the same. It's media entertainment. We'll get out on that. It's it's Friday, so I'm already done with the overnight and all that. You've got work today, yes, Danny's.
Yes, sir, extra work today, Ben, because we are traveling again again. Yeah we are. We are busy. Amazon they took over for ESPN for the PBC the Pro Boxing Championships, and that is in Vegas tomorrow on Saturday, and so Amazon Prime is having us out there to broadcast live
from their radio row of boxing at the MGM. So yeah, I'm gonna produce this fine podcast and then get on a plane and get our butts to Vegas to broadcast the afternoon show live from two to four on the West Side, and that's five to seven pm in Richmond, Virginia.
Yeah, there you go, beautiful Richmond, Virginia, which is not that far away from Liberty University.
Yeah, we're you smoking, kid.
It's all tied together. It's all tied together. I have a great day. We'll kiss you tomorrow.
Asta pasta, gotta murder, I gotta go.