Cutbooms.
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich pill poppers.
In the penthouse. Wow.
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
In the air everywhere.
The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio and a Happy Friday Morning to you. Finished with the radio show a couple hours ago. I walked out of the studio and I said.
All right, I'm gonna come in here.
I'm gonna come back to the podcast studio, the remote podcast studio.
And I had this big plan.
I was going to tell all these stories about Santa Benny and all that stuff. And however, I've made an editorial decision on this edition of the Fifth Hour podcast. I have decided that I need to get back on my bully pulpit. And even though I did four hours of talk radio last night and I used the soapbox to rant and rave about what happened in the NFL game.
It was such a whack a doodle finish to the Rams Seahawk game last night in the beautiful Pacific Northwest that I have decided that I'm going to rant more about that. I have some more thoughts I want to share with the class. And you're part of the class, and we will give you the holiday schedule as promised later in this podcast, which includes Hanukkah, which is going on right now, so Lotka's Jelly Donuts and then with
my wife's family Christmas cookies. She bought eggnog. I will not be partaking in that, the whole Norman Rockwell thing.
We'll have that, But.
Right now, in this moment, let's get the party started with a little audio therapy. Not radio therapy. This is podcast therapy. It's therapeutic. It's just what the doctor ordered. It's group counseling. It needs to be done because of the Seattle screw job that took place last night. Now, I don't work for the Rams. You know that I'm not a show for the Rams. You know that, although
no Streudinis might disagree, I'm not. I don't make any money when the Rams win unless I bet on the game and I did a small bet, nothing major in that game, and Seattle was actually favored by one and a half to two by the time the game kicked off.
I need to talk.
About this because what we watched was not football. That was a magic trick. It was sleight of hand. The NFL pulled two points out of a hat like a street hustler with a bent deck of cards back in the old Times Square in Manhattan. Now let's say it's slowly, because I know there's some people there that might be listening on Park Avenue in New York wearing headsets. Now, if you're in the replay center in New York, you have the headset and then a blindfold. The referee blew the play dead whistle.
That's it.
The universal signed for stopped playing football. Now, that's it. And everybody did the Rams stop. The Seahawks stopped, even Zach Charmoneau, who came over there, and he slowed down like he hit rush hour traffic. And he wasn't in a hurry. The play was dead. He grabbed the ball, but he wasn't in any hustle. It was finito. It was done, and somehow the modern day Penn and Teller went abra kadabra. The NFL handed Seaheadle two points, like a complimentary mint at the end of a bad meal
when they give you the bill. And by the NFL's own rule, I went back and I looked because I thought, well, maybe I got something wrong here by the NFL's own rule. And I know reading is hard for some spelling is hard for others. I learned that every week on the show and inadvertent whistles. According to the NFL's own rule book, an inadversive inadvertent whistle ends the play unless the action is a continuation already in progress. Key phrase already in progress.
Now Charboneau, the running back there does not stop to pick up the ball until way after the whistle after, not during, not simultaneous after. That's not continuation, it's not that's a sequel. Nobody asked for its. It's hilarious to me watching the replay, and I watched it, I don't know seven thousand times. The second that whistle blows, whistle, whistle, whistle, everyone freezes. It's like a middle school dance when the chaperone flips the lights on. It's also like musical chairs.
The music stops game over. But the NFL said, nah, eh, I think we'll keep dancing. Well, Seattle, you're allowed to dance the Rams. No. And here's the kicker on this. It isn't even about the officials on the field. They actually got the call right in the stadium, the Seahawks were preparing to kick off to the Rams.
They got the call right. They called the play dead. They did their jobs.
The disaster was cooked up by the instant replay brain trust in the Big Apple, the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, pulling levers and pretending this is all you know, this is all kosher, that it makes sense. And but wait, there's even more. Now, how about the absurdity of advancing a fumble ball on a scoring play. Now, that's supposedly banned in the fourth quart it's illegal for boton, it's against the rule, except apparently, when it's a two point conversion.
The Seahawks need a little bit of a booster, a little booster shot.
There you go. It's funny how the.
Fine print always opens up like a trapdoor, the NFL handing the Seattle football team two points like a TSA agent, waving one guy through while everyone else gets friss like.
What the heck? And this wasn't missed.
It's manufactured, is the word I will use. And let's not ignore the snuffleufigus wearing stripes in the corner of the room. Who's chatting with the HeLa monster? Okay, they're having a conversation. And then over there, I believe the is that a giant oversized blue whale that just swam into the room. We already talked about the Puka Nicool horsehead in the bed on the radio show last night. The league sending a little bit of a message. You're gonna talk out of school, out of class, you're gonna
talk about the referees. Well, suddenly the rule books can get flexed like a yoga instructor. The Rams should have won the game thirty to twenty eight in regulation, end the game, roll credits, that's it. Instead, we got a blown call that changed the outcome of a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff.
Whether it's the division, who knows.
What's going to happen the final few weeks of the season, but the division, number one seed, number one in the NFC. A call so bad it belongs in the hall, not that hall, the Hall of shame. Right next to the infamous replacement referees, the past interference reviews that vanish into thin air. Now was this malfeasance? Was this incompetence or was this intentional?
Right?
That's the question hanging in the air.
Like Kim trails back on the old Coast to Coast with Art Bell and you know the spin is coming, right, and I've already started to see some of it. I cannot wait. I'm gonna go to bed here a little bit, and by the time I get up, it'll all be bouncing around the echo chamber the League press release, which will be a gigantic word salad. And by the way, I don't like salads. I don't like salad, but it'll
be a word salad. Correct application of the rule as it is written in Phase seventeen of the rule book after a further review. Spare me, I'm gonna puke in my mouth. No justice, no peace. This one's going to echo for days. The Seattle screw job, the Rams got robbed. Case closed. Now you say the case is closed, but you think I'm done.
Hell no, hell no.
Let's address my coffee drinking seahawk loving friends. So I mentioned I did the radio show a little while ago. Oh I got done. I had a little bit of a down stretch, kind of reset the battery there for a little bit, and then I come back.
Into the remote studio to do.
The podcast, and I made the mistake of opening up my email, my inbox, and then also went on.
Social media, some of the social media stuff.
And I'm going to say this slowly, clearly, and I believe with perfectly polished, a perfectly polished golden hammer. For my friends and those that are regular fans of the show, some of you I met at the Seattle meet and greet we did in twenty nineteen.
But those of you chiming in from.
Seattle wagging your fingers and declaring that I've gone full tinfoil houtguy malor you boys think that I've lost my fastball. You're calling this a conspiracy rant that what are you doing?
You're laughing at me.
You're saying that it's like I've seen sasquatch wearing ram colors in the end zone. Listen, Regardless of all that, here's the inconvenient truth. You j'rer bronis. You jackwagons can't handle and all of you you fall on the spectrum of Mama Luke.
Yes.
Yeah, let me explain the inconvenient truth.
A lot of things feel true long before they're actually officially stamped approved by the people in charge. This is all stuff that comes out in books years later. History is littered with examples. This is not fringe, this is not outer space, this is not street level reality.
It's not any of that.
I'm not doing remote viewing what we witnessed in Seattle last night as we're doing this podcast early on this Friday, the nineteenth day of December. But you look last night, that was the metaphorical bloody knuckles is what that was. It was NFL street justice I get. In my opinion, it was payback with a smile for m wide receiver Pooka Nakua, who sent out a comment on social media and then deleted it after the game. But Pookah is
the guy. He listened, he poked the hornets nest. He went out of two and twenty five yards receiving, two hundred and twenty five yards receiving and a couple of touchdowns, and yet the NFL is like, listen, you poked the hornets nest live on a live stream Internet stream and surprise, surprise, surprise, he got stung by the hornet's nest right there, Well, the hornets in the nest, you prod the hive, don't act shock when the bees come buzzing.
And now I know the game. You know some of you.
Are playing, not all of you, but some of you are playing. Some are just rage baiting.
I know.
It's like, hey, let's poke the mallor hoping to get a reaction so you feel alive. Right, you get five minutes in your sorry ass situation.
I want to I'm gonna bust mallards chops, That's what I'm gonna do. Okay, I'm not talking to you. Okay. I enjoy busting balls as much as anyone. I love hitting buttons. It's fun.
I'm amazed how people get so upset over sports takes on an overnight show. However, here we are, it still happens all these years later. So I'm not worried about the rage baiting morons. Right, the ones I would like to address, and if this is you, you fall into this category, this basket, the ones that actually believe this nonsense about there's nothing to see here. And when you label anyone who questions it a conspiracy theorist. Congratulations, you
have just won the booby prize. You are drinking the kool aid of the CIA.
That's right, the CIA.
Yeah, I went there. Buckle up, buccaroo. Now, while the CIA did not technically invent the phrase conspiracy theory.
Didn't you know that?
Way back in nineteen sixty seven, so we're talking almost sixty years ago, the internal CIA the Dispatch, recommended using the term conspiracy theorist to discredit critics of what the time was a very big report, the Warren Commission, and so the memo from the CIA, it actually helped popularize the term as a weaponized slur designed to shut down any kind of debate. You cannot question anything.
Because you will be given cooties.
You're going to be called a conspiracy theorist and shutting up a lot of people. You shut them down any kind of debate by making skeptics sound unhinged.
How dare you?
And no, I am not wearing tinfoil headphones. It is documented history. It's the same playbook as the NC double a years ago.
They were facing their ruin.
People were suing them, people were players, were dying, their girlfriends, their.
Wives, were suing the NCED double A.
It was called something else, but they came up with the term student athlete, just pulled that out of thin air. It was a phrase cooked up to avoid paying workers comp a cute combination of words ugly motive, ugly motive. And they did that for so long that people thought it was legit. They didn't realize it was a hustle by the nc Double A, and they kept repeating it even to this day. While players are being paid wads of cash, more money than Alf and Fergdog get paid.
To do the show, which is not much, not much.
But they just give them wads of cash and say, here, play football for us, play basketball for us. And they still people still use the term student athlete. And here's the malor money line. It's not a conspiracy theory in terms of the NFL stuff or really anything, if it's true.
It's not a conspiracy theory if it's true. So let's talk some football.
What do you say, because the NFL has already released the hounds, it's gonna get worse. Later I mentioned the word salad is coming from the NFL. They'll be sending it to Pro Football talk. And then Florio will post it and he'll go nutso and all that stuff. So we know that's coming, but it's already started. Like suddenly, out pop the rules experts, right, the rules experts like jack in the box lawyers.
And as they pop up.
And you know, spin the thing in the jack in the box, they spin themselves dizzy trying to spit polish a rusted broken call now one of my favorites, and I wanted to share with you here on the Fifth Hour podcast, and I quote, this is somebody that worked for the NFL.
I don't think they worked for the NFL anymore. They're former referee.
The quote was, whether a whistle is blown or not is completely irrelevant to the two point conversion that was given to Seattle. Completely irrelevant was the line, so the whistle is blown or not, it's completely irrelevant. That is higgely piggly nonsense, is what that is. That's not analysis. That's called gas lighting. One oh one call him the
gas man whoever said that. And for those that are playing along at home or at the gym, or at work or in your car, gas lighting, I think we all know what that is, but some of you might
not know. Gas lighting is the manipulation of people into questioning their own reality, into doubting what their eyes saw and their ears heard, and what we all heard, every man, woman, and child, clear as a church bell whistle, whistle whistle, And so that might be the dumbest thing ever spoken by a human with some kind of credentials to their name. The NFL wants to have it both ways. Heads they win tails. You are cuckoo for cocoa puffs. You're crazy,
crazy crazy. You're on the chew crazy trade. You are when players from both teams let me repeat this for those of you a little slow. For players from both things, maybe you're on the spectrum. When players from both teams stopped playing at the sound of the whistle, including the numb nuts who casually strolled over to bend down to
pick up the ball. Two full mississippi seconds, one mississippi, two mississippi after the whistle, that is no longer a clear recovery by any reasonable definition known to humanity.
Beast or zebra or lizard, person or the grays. I don't care. If whistles and rules are now.
Open to interpretation, then congratulations, Come on down, We've got ourselves a rule change. So from here on out, the lesson is ignore the whistle. It's not just play to the whistle, it's played through them. Pretend they are hood ornaments and they're there for decoration. In fact, why even bother having officials save money. Just let some guy from Long Island who's in New York blow an airhorn when the play is over like a monster truck rally, watch
out for the grave digger. By the way, and to everyone parroting the rule book, because I have seen this already too this morning. They're parroting the rule book like it's this scripture. And welcome to the oldest argument in sports.
It's really in.
Life, the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. By the letter of the law, I'm sure you can futs around and find something there, find something that the NFL got right.
But by the spirit of the law.
NFL players are trained from Pop Warner on up.
We're talking Pop Warner.
That's when they hear a whistle, the play is dead, period, end of sermon. The play is dead if the whistle doesn't blow. And we'll just look at the game last night. If that whistle doesn't blow, multiple ram players dive on all of They all dive on the ball be a dogpile, and you know they're like seagulls dive bombing, drop French fry on the beach.
So did that happen?
No? No, you know, have we gone bonkers?
No?
Have I joined the Flat Earth Society? No, I've not joined the Flat Earth Society, although they still send me emails every once in a while because I blamed Kyrie Irving. We did a thing about the flat earth and then the or the Actually, the flat earth people do not send me stuff.
It's the hollow earth people. Excuse me. The flat earth people don't bother me.
The hollow earth people who were a subset when we talked about Kyrie Irving and the flat Earth.
Those people reach out to me every once in a while.
But I'm just refusing to pretend that water isn't wet because some rules analysts told me it's dry.
Carrying the water for the NFL. The whistle has to mean something.
It has to or the whole thing, the whole operation for Gayzy, which is the word of the week for Gayzy seems to be.
The word of the week.
I feel like I've used it a lot and there's a lot of things. I'm not rushing to conclusions. I'm just selling you. I'm telling you that there's a lot of stuff going on in sports.
Right now that is for gazy is what it is.
All right now to the holiday radio schedule, by demand, by demand, I have waited to This is not the end of a podcast, but it's getting closer to the end of the podcast, and we will, for ratings purposes, push back the Santa Benny version of this podcast until Saturday.
I have some things I want to share with you.
About my experience, which I love so much, of climbing to the top of a fire truck and playing Santa. However, you know, I would assume, because you're listening to the podcast, you're a high level p one that I by nature a worker bee. I don't like time off. I don't trust time off. Time off is it's like a suspicious relative who shows up unannounced to your house, double parks in the driveway, and somehow still complains about parking while also eating all of your food.
And I had this happen. I've had this happen a few times.
I've had people over and they've just gone wild, right, just absolutely gone wild, and it's maddening. Absolutely maddening is what it is.
And so.
Every once in a while, even the most stubborn awks has to leave the plow in the field and walk back to the barn. You know, this is my passion. The overnight show, what we call the Ben Mallor show. It's not really a job. It's not a paying job at Pizzo.
Okay, but not.
I could be making more money if I did a daytime show, I'd be making a lot more money. But it's an audio sweatshop, right, It's a nightly assembly line of piping hot takes, crazy calls from people like hollering James and blarn Maine and Lucky Tony rants, Mallard metaphors, mallarisms, all that stuff. It rolls off the conveyor belt in the factory of hot takes while most of the world is, at least our side of the world is drooling in a pillow, or at least auto pillow. Now I like
it that way. I have more editorial freeman freedom at night. I don't have people my boss is harassing me. I thrive under the cover of darkness. Think of me like an audio raccoon with a microphone, rummaging through the sporting news trash at three am and loving every second of it. However, here we are, I have stacked up comp days the old fashioned way by working holidays most people don't even know have names. And I have worked the big ones
as well. Thanksgiving, fourth of July, you name it, those like President's Day.
I don't even know if that's a company hall. I think it is this federal holiday.
But while on the fourth line, well, you're lighting fireworks or carving a turkey on Thanksgiving, I'm carving up monologues like a Deli slicer on full blast.
And those receipts add up.
And so this is the the malor math hours in hours ode on those holidays. And then there's real life like my wife, who runs a tighter operation than most NFL front offices, and she is a social butterfly occasionally occasionally, and so she has us hosting multiple holiday parties. One of them will take place this weekend, another one the following week which means that I have to take part in actual human interaction. I have to get plates, napkins, I have to smile, I have to pretend like I'm
interested in people telling me stories. I don't care about eye contact. I am waving the white flag. As a result of that, I will become Benny the Baker this week Extreme Baking. I will also be taking the rare and appropriate time off, which for me feels like skipping leg day after a decade long streak, or more like, I guess intermittent fasting, which I have this ridardulous streak going. But here's the Malar scoreboard, and yes I'm I'm giving
you the information slowly. For the people in the cheap seats here, it is the big payoff here, the moment of truth. Plan your vacations accordingly. The Ben Mahlor Show, not the podcast. The Ben Malor Show, has not one, but two more live shows in twenty twenty five. We'll be recapping the NFL Sunday into Monday, and we'll be
recapping the NFL Monday into Tuesday. Now after that, we go into what's known as suspended animation, kind of like a sci fi movie, not a good one, not a good one, where the hero is frozen in a pod, dreaming of bad officiating and phantom replay reviews and giving Puka Nakouah, the business and all of that and breaking down all of this like government spreadsheets. But fear not, loyalist foot soldiers, you know who you are, My most ardent supporters that would die on Mount mallor in the
Mallard Militia. The podcast should still be there. Now there is a chance I make a little road trip. I will not be flying. I'll be driving somewhere to an the state, which in the West is a whole endeavored to go to another state. So if that happens, that might delay the podcast. I don't know that that will be the case.
I believe I think.
Will be good on that, and so Benny versus the Penny should still be breathing on YouTube as well. As we wind down the regular season in the NFL. The pantry will not be bare. However, the original recipe, the full overnight Grind will be put on.
Ice Ice Ice Baby.
We officially returned from hiatus on Sunday night into Monday, January fourth into January fifth, and we'll flip the switch back on like the Frankenstein Monster and minus of course the neck bolts will mix in extra sarcasm. I'll try to get some sleep over the next couple of weeks and then come back recharge. Think of it as our brothers and sisters in the NBA say, load management, load management. I'm not retiring. I'm not retiring.
And if I end up getting fired, it was not my decision.
I'm kidding, but no, this is a strategic time strategic time out, not a two minute warning. And even the most reliable workhorse, whatever you think that is, needs a pit stop, an oil change, maybe a fresh set of tires. You need all that stuff before getting back on the overnight highway where the things go bumpity bump at night.
So my message to you is thank you.
And we have two more podcasts this weekend, and I've got two more ratorships.
I just want to thank you now. I'll thank you again. I want to thank.
You for supporting what we do here. And it's been a transitional period of time.
We lost I.
Say lost at He's not dead, but he was like go by the company. Eddie Garcia is a big part of the show. And the show's continued on and it's different than it was and the characters changed. But the show's popularity has been pretty good because of you, and so I want you to enjoy the holidays, whatever you celebrate. If you don't celebrate anything, just have a great day, enjoy your life.
I want you to eat too much food. I want you to gain ten pounds. I want you to argue with in laws that you don't like.
I want you to argue with your relatives that are blood relatives that you also don't like. I want you to miss me just enough, just enough where you come back, just enough where you come back, because soon enough it'll be lights, camera action. The lights will come back on, the phones will start ringing, We'll be breaking down things with Marcella and Brooklyn and hollering.
James and all.
The characters on the show will return, and the Audio Sweatshop will reopen for business.
So we have much to get to.
I will put the baby to bed right now, but we'll have no podcast on Saturday. I will give you the Santa Bendi podcast on Saturday. That is my plan, unless something crazy happens later today that requires another emergency Mallard monologue like this ridoculous play in Seattle on Thursday night. So Danny putting this thing together. Danny g hopefully will join me at some point over the weekend. And later skater aasta pasta gotta murder, I gotta go