The Fifth Hour: Superior Root Beer & Car Chase

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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.

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The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break Free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now.

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Everywhere back in the podcast dojo. It is the Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio.

Because four hours a night in the middle of the night not enough.

Eight days a week as this podcast a spin off of the Ben Maler Show, and you hear Danny g on with Covino and Rich during the week on Fox Sports Radio. We thank you for finding the podcast available on demand as you are listening right now.

Whenever your heart desires.

You can find this podcast wherever you found it, anywhere you get podcasts, the iHeart Podcast Network available worldwide, and all the different podcast zones that you can go to. But dang, we are back at it again. We had the global review of the Malard Meet and Greet on the Friday podcast, but there are still more tales to be told from the Naked City, and we have those tales.

We went over to the detail.

So I was there in Minnesota on Sunday and Monday. And on Sunday I did something that is very out of character for me and the wife. We decided we enjoyed going to Lake Minnetonka so much, and I went online. I was like, what's the biggest lake in Minnesota? I want to go to the biggest. I don't want to go to the second, or the third or the fourth biggest. I want to go to the biggest, Go bigger, go home. So I did a quick Google search, just Google in my case bing because I like to get the points.

Dawn with my wife.

We got up at six am on Sunday, six am on Sunday to make the trip all the way up the state of Minnesota to the North Country to the north star of destination, Duluth. And that is the home of one of the ports of Lake Superior. Oh yeah, so another one of the great Lakes. Now I've been to. Now that I've been to Lake Superior, I've been to Lake Michigan many times, Lake Erie.

How many?

How many of the What are the other great I'm trying to think I've been to the other I think I know I've been to Lake Erie, have been to Lake Michigan, I've been to Lake Superior. I'm trying to think if I've been to any of the other great Lakes. I think those are the only three I've been to. I think there's there's a couple other ones right.

That I forget.

There's Ontario and Heron.

Yeah, I've not been to those. Where is Lake Huron? Is that Michigan that's it?

Yeah, I want to say that's Michigan.

Yeah, Lake Ontario I've not been to.

So anyway, I was very cool to be at Lake Superior. It is literally the largest lake in the United States and the largest freshwater lake in the world. As my wife and I had the same look on our faces. We go to the lake, you pull up through, you come down a hill into the Luth because the city of Duluth most of it is on the hillside overlooking Lake Superior. The way they built it, and this you might as well be at the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean. As far as you can see is nothing but water.

Boat tour of Lake Superior. So the thing.

Left at nine to thirty. We had to get there at nine, so we got up at six. We got on the road at six thirty to drive up there. And here's a fun fact. You want a fun fact? You can't handle a fun fact?

Are you ready?

Yeah, on the edge of our seats.

I know this is gonna blow your mind. Alf the Alien, O Pinter and Fergdog are gonna love this one. So Lake Superior is so large.

How large is it?

It is so large that it could hold the water from all of the other Great Lakes combined along with three more lake eries.

That is how big this thing is. It's crazy. It spans from.

Minnesota through Wisconsin, that peninsula Wisconsin, and then also above it there's Canada.

So it's ridiculous.

Maybe that's why they named it Superior.

Well, you know, it's a size things. It's clearly a size thing. I like the extended winner, damn you.

So then the other big surprise was, man, look at the pollution and Lake Superior. The water is like the color of shit. What happened?

Right? Oh man? My wife's like, the water looks disgusting. It's like the color of coffee.

And the locals, though, say it is a root beard delight the water in Lake Superior.

And I had no idea. I never in there, how would I know this? But into Luth, Minnesota, the water is brown. Now it's a light brown. It's a root beer color on the north shore. And the reason that is I looked it up.

I was like, what the hell is going on with this? I don't understand, Like, this is disgusting. And they claim that it's from the streams that lead into Lake Superior. The water it comes from the plants. It's not so much the iron. And they say it's very common after they get rain that the lake will go a darker shade of brown because of the various rivers.

Oh, okay lead into Lake Superior.

But if you just look at it and you have no concept of that, it looks like poopy water or coffee water. And it was interesting, and so I enjoyed my time into Luth. I did not know what to We've had callers. We had a guy working at a hotel, Hotel Ryan from Duluth years ago. It was a big star caller on the show. He got married, he had kids, he stopped stopped calling the show. But it was freaking freezing here by our California standards, it was. We got to Duluth and we got ready to go on the boat.

We went there.

I was disappointed though, because the price of gas was pretty much the same as the other stations I think.

I think Minnesota is one of those.

States they do not allow Costco to lower the price too much for competitive reasons, which I think is ridiculous.

But whatever, So we got gas there and then we went.

To this this shopping area. They have this big mall, of course indoor mall, because you don't want to be outdoors in Duluth most of the year.

And we went to this.

Local burger place there's like a brewery burger place, and had my first ever poutine burger. I never had a poutine burger. Not bad, by the way, not bad, like a barbecue poutine burger. And it was so wild because this shopping center Danny was right up against Lake Superior.

So we were walking through the different stories. I'm gonna send you a photo here.

I want you to check this out, just to prove I'm not I'm not lying. So we walked through this big shopping center and you know, you got a bite to eat. We're walking around the different stores and these stores are right up against Lake Superior. So like there was a kitchen store sea if I can find this, I got a lot of random posts. So there's a kitchen store. And then right behind the kitchen store is

Miles and miles of poop water.

Well that was behind it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me see. I can show you the all right, I found it here. So there's a picture.

I won't tell you what's in the picture, but you gotta you gotta zoom in a little bit here, Danny, and you'll see what I'm talking about, because it is just like a reg the store or whatever, and it's back is to the lake and so you can get a you see the photo there should have come through. Now you get any kind of kitchen supplies you need at the kitchen company.

Yeah, I see the kitchen supplies.

And look I was zoom in a little bit. You see behind that that.

Is oh yeah, so it looks like you're on the lake still exactly.

It looks like you're in the lake.

And yeah, it was right behind it. This place called Fitgers was the shopping cent I guess it's an old brewery in in Duluth. And it was very it was very cool.

I had a good time.

I had a fun time there, and I don't know that I'll ever would be back, and I'd be a one and done, but it was worth it had a good trip and nice meal, and then headed back because I had to go see my brother back in Minneapolis, and I had some more things to do. Had to go check out the different stadiums around Minnesota, so we did that. We'll get to that later in the podcast. It's all about the key. But which key is it about?

Danny? That's the question, Which key is it about?

You know, like you Ben, I had a traffic incident. Oh, you have that in common. The difference is mine was almost on TV.

Oh.

So now I'm trying to get home to watch the game. I was doing post production for a Covino and Rich after the show. So I get the podcast stuff up and I run to the parking garage. I get on the freeway and of course Sherman Oaks is slammed. Four h five not moving, one oh one, not moving. It's traffic hell. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm listening to the game on the radio. It's fine, but I you know, I'm like, want to get home, have some dinner, watch the game the rest of the second

It must be a fender bender or something up there. And they have this freeway on ramp blocks. What do I do.

I'm listening to John Ireland and I'm like, God, I got to get home and see the rest of this on TV. No offense to John Ireland, but as you know, Ben, listening to a game and watching it just two different animals.

Yeah, and John Ireland of course a member of the Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association. Yes, he did a show with Stephen A. Smith of all people. But you'd rather watch the game. You want to sit down on your sofa.

And yeah, and I know my wife he had dinner waiting and they're all watching the game, and I'm like, I want to get home. So now I had an executive decision to make. There's a double line, you know, to the left of me, so I'm thinking, should I take a chance and do an I legal U turn and go catch the frontage road to go up to the next freeway on ramp. I'm so happy, Ben that I took a couple of beats here and this this just goes to prove think about it before you make

No cars have been coming this direction.

It was almost like they blocked off, you know, both lanes mine and the oncoming lane. And I was like, man, is a cop gonna see what I'm doing and then come after me?

Oh me? Thank god, Ben, because.

Right as I finally decide to start turning my wheel to the left, a Harley comes blasting. He has to move his bike to avoid the nose of my car, which is now starting to stick out into the oncoming traffic. Coming behind him is a string of CHP officers after another, after another, after another.

I'm not shitting you.

Fifteen to seventeen cruisers are chasing this guy.

Wow.

Man, I was in the middle of a Los Angeles car chase.

That's authentic LA. And when you think of LA, you think of the bacon wrap hot dog, and you think of the car chase, and you experienced that. And what was it like, Danny when you look around and you saw the helicopters over your head.

I assumed they were there right for the local TV and whatnot.

So I'm hurriedly trying to get my wheel back to the right, to get myself back into my lane. Now that I know what's going on, my nose on my car is still sticking out a little bit, and my heart is going super fast because I'm like, holy.

Shit, that's definitely a car chase.

So I quickly open up my spectrum map on my phone and I'm now watching this on Fox eleven and this guy, this Harley guy's being chased, and on my phone screen graphics say man with gun on motorcycle. Oh boy, yeah, and I'm like, holy I almost took out the guy that they were chasing.

I'm just I'm freaking out.

I call my Wifey and I'm was like, hey, turn on Channel eleven and she's watching it and she's like, what's going on. We're trying to watch the Lakers game. And I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand. I almost hit the guy that they're chasing. And she's like, what are you talking about. So I'm explaining it to her.

That's good. Now here's the question.

Anny, if you had actually made contact with the Harley, would you a have been seen as a good Samaritan that was helping the police out or be a guy that was a douchebag trying to cut in line?

Which one would it have been?

Danny, you have very good radio instincts, Ben, because that's why I named this. Which key would it be the key to the city or the key to the slammer?

Because I would have.

Took out the guy they were chased seeing, but I also would have done an illegal U turn.

So would they have given me a pass on the traffic violation.

Well, here's what they would have done.

The police would have said, well, we do not want good Samaritans to injure themselves, but we are happy that it worked out this way. This person helped us out, So I think you have been okay, Danny.

I think you would have been in good shape.

But that's that's why I've been I've never been that close. I've been on the freeway when those things happen, on the highway when the chases have gone by on the other side, but never been in the middle of one.

Never.

Next the next day on Coveno and Rich I got to tell the story, and Dan Bayer said that the problem I would have had was with my insurance company, because he says they would not have covered the damages to my car because you.

Were you made the illegal turn, you were vised.

So I could have got a high five from the mayor and I could have been a big hero, But then I would have been left with a destroyed car.

I did see the photo you sent me the car chase, and I see the Danny Gmobile, which is like a Superman car there and you're clearly crossed over the double line. And then there is a Harley, a white Harley, which you say is evading police LAPD pursuit in San Fernando Valley right there, and it does look like you are the only car crossed over the double yellow.

I would have clabbered that guy.

Yeah, or he would have clobbered. He would have driven in the side of your car.

Right, my car is built like a tank.

I think I would have been okay, but he might have flown over his handlebars.

Dude, you could have killed the guy. Oh my gosh. Wow.

It ended up a happy, happy story for Danny, although not happy for your Lakers. Unfortunately, Danny quite go so well for the Lakers.

But you know what, Ben, they played seventeen extra games that I didn't expect. As I learned from you, making the Final four is a pretty big deal.

No, no, no, When you're the Clippers, that's a big deal. But I was told the standards are different for the Lakers. That's what I was talking to me.

Fair, No, it's a big deal for any team.

No, no, no, I was told you guys all told me it's not that big a deal.

Don't get all excited about it. We're the Lakers.

We don't get excited about the Final four. Anybody on the Clippers is half of what Kobe Bryant is edited audio is what that is anyway, the Baker's surprise here. So, during my long drive back from Dluth to Minneapolis Tales of Malar's travel log Tales from Malor's travelog. So on our way back, me and the wife we get back to Minneapolis, back to civilization, and we were trying to find a cinnamon role place in in Duluth, there was this play called Sir Benedict's, but they called it Sir Ben's.

Once you get something like that in your cra you can't let it go.

Yeah.

So she goes on her phone, she starts googling bakeries in Minnesota, and she says, I got one.

We're going to try this place out.

It's a local mom and pop bakery, and so she types it into the to the map app on the phone, and so we're going down the highway there in Minneapolis, we get off on thirty sixth Street and turn left. Thirty from downtown thirty sixth Street, turn left. That's the off ramp, and we're cruising along. We're looking for the bakery, cruising along and we go up a couple of blocks. We make one turn and as we're driving off in

Right.

They're made out of like a statue, but they're not a well made statue that's kind of put in the middle of the street.

There's a traffic.

Circle and look like paper mache.

Yeah kind of.

It was large, but it was like paper mache. And there's this roundabout and then behind it is a liquor store and there's a bunch of signs up about. We couldn't really make out what the signs were, but we knew we were in an interesting part of Minneapolis. And you want to take a guess. This turned out to be one of the most notorious intersections in American history in Minneapolis.

Oh no, I'm not familiar with this.

That intersection is where George Floyd was murdered outside.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha.

Back in twenty twenty.

I always forget that it happened in Minnesota.

I knew it happened in Minnesota.

In fact, I was telling him I was, I listen, and the one area we probably should not go to is that area, just because I didn't know I was going on there and on. But we didn't know where we were going. We just typed it in the GPS, and we ended up cruising right by there. There's a big mural for George Floyd that's there, The liquor store is still there. There's a bunch of random protest signs that are out in the roundabout in front of the liquor store. I mean, it was really wild, Danny. I mean I

Store there, and it was really interesting to think about.

I mean, what had happened there and everything that happened since then, that event in Minnesota, which happened. The third anniversary was on Thursday of this week, so just a couple days ago was the third anniversary back in twenty twenty of the event, so it was We did eventually get to the bakery. They were out of cinnamon rolls, so that was also disappointing. But I did get a donut which was pretty good and all that, so that was that was pretty cool.

So I got that and that was my.

We were there still people visiting that area or was it more like the mural and the signs and stuff were just left from the past.

No, there were some signs for different people that had been, according to the signs, had been the victims of brutality from law enforcement.

That's kind of like the staging here.

I don't know how to describe it properly, but that's where if you have something to complain about or protest about it as an injustice, you put the sign up in that area. There weren't too many people there. It wasn't like it was overwhelming the area, but it was only a couple of miles from where we were staying.

It was like everything's real close in Minnesota.

There's not a lot of distance between anything in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I got to walk across by the way the Mississippi River, which was kind of cool. I can add that I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, and there's this other bridge in Minnesota where it goes right across the Mississippi River, the Mighty Mississippi River, And.

That was pretty important and very important question. Yes, they were out of cinnamon rolls, So what did you order at the bakery?

So I got a donut and then there were some other pastry type things that my wife recommended that we we picked out.

You don't sound too thrilled.

I did not. It was not. It was not I want. When you want a cinnamon roll, you need a cinamon role. You don't need this other stuff. You don't you don't need it. And I didn't get my cinnamon role. I did get it later.

I got a different kind of a cinnamon type role thing.

But it was the Mississippi River.

It is this stone arched bridge, so this old bridge that was designed for railroads, and then once the railroad track they took it off.

The bridge.

You could walk from side to side across the Mississippi and it was it was cool. It was somebody that's not normally around the Mississippi River. And we saw the original Pillsbury factory where pills started in Minneapolis, and that was kind of neat as a kid that grew up on Pillsbury and there's.

A street named after him, and so that was all kind of cool.

That's a very cool looking bridge.

Oh yeah, it's awesome.

It's great the skylines behind it and you can see the water going through.

That's the end of boat travel.

You can't go past that point from the south, like if you're coming from the Gulf Coast and you're going up to the Mississippi, that's where you have to get off the boat because they can't go over there's a little waterfall thing that they're not able to go over.

So it's pretty cool. We have a little time left. I wanted to get to the Meaty Showdown.

We'll get back to the normal bits that we do next week with the let's get scientifical and.

All that other fun stuff that we have.

We'll get to that next week, but I did want to I did want to give you the Meaty.

Showdown, if you will. So my trip to Minnesota.

Was filled with burgers, but not just regular burgers, burgers filled with cheese, the local culinary delight as we chowed down and we went big in the Twin Cities. I want to thank Greg, who is a fan of this podcast and a fan of the radio show. He's a retired chef. And I also want to thank Al among others, who recommended the Big Three the Holy Land of the Juicy Lucy. Now to give you an idea of how

I just whatever.

So I get to town at one o'clock. We get to town at one o'clock, We get the rental car. We can't check into our the place we're staying till three o'clock, so we had some time to burn And before getting to the place, we were saying, me and the wife are like, you know what, let's go get our first meal in Minnesota.

Why not?

The plan was we were going to go eat, We're gonna go back, take a nap, and then go back out.

Again for more food. Why not.

So me and the wife we drove over to Saint Paul, which is real close. It's like a ten minute drive, and we went to this place called the Nook. This was Greg's choice. He said, it's the number one juicy Lucy in the Twin Cities. So we had cheese curds. I had the traditional juicy Lucy.

My wife, had you looked up the Knook's menu on a previous podcast.

Yes, we talked about that. The Paul Molitor was there, so yeah, So I went to the Nook. We ordered the cheese curds. I had the originally the traditional juicy Lucy, which was delicious.

Chef's kiss the curds.

This is going to offend my brother who lives in Wisconsin, but these were the top cheese curds we'd ever had at the They were perfectly balanced, proper amount of cheese, proper amount of crunch, proper amount of oil. They weren't too heavy, they went too light. They were perfect, just wonderful. The burger, though, there's an art to eating a juicy lucy. And here's the art, Danny. You gotta have patience, they

You can't count to three minutes.

No, no, you remember the last time I burned my mouth when I made pizza. And then I decided to eat the pizza very quickly, and I sounded like I sound like Lou Holtz for two weeks?

Is that a lisp?

Because my tongue. So I was like, I'm not gonna get injured on this. I'm not, so whatever, I sent my timer. I end up biting into that that juicy lucy and it was still scolding hot. It was still scolding hot, but it was wonderful, and then over the course of the weekend at different points we ate at the other two locations matts in five twenty eight. Now you know how in la there's a great debate about whether or not the French dip started at.

Cole's or Philip's, the two.

So in Minnesota there's a debate is it match or is it five twenty eight? They go back and forth, and so we we ate a match. After the Mala meeting mentioned, I couldn't eat anything that it didn't have time to eat.

Just had a glass of water. So we went out.

We actually watched I watched the end of the Laker Nuggets game, which was Game three, watch from Matts and I'll give you the positives and the negatives of Matts.

Now.

The positives solid Burger, the decorp had a good charm to it. It looked like it was the same as it had been seventy years ago when the place opened, hadn't changed anything. The negatives hash only so no credit cards, which is a nuisance in this modern world where we paid with everything with credit cards. Not a lot of room was an older place that was part of it was a blessing and a curse because it was really cool because it was old, but it was.

Kind of tight. It was small, yeah, pretty expensive.

It seemed like they cleaned seventy years ago as well, or.

Well, the last time they cleaned it was about fifty years ago, so not seventy they cleaned it fifty years ago. And so we went there, and then I went to the five to twenty eight on Sunday night. We went to the five twenty eight with my brother positives on that nice big location, lots of parking, large portions. We ordered onion strings and they gave me enough onion strings to fill Lake Superior. It was that many onion strings.

Dude, I can't handle that. It was.

It was disgusting that it was not cooked well enough. Send it back nine and send it back as I don't.

Want to be that guy.

The overall quality, I didn't think it was up to the other restaurants. Like the portion size was awesome, but anyway, the Malor report card on this Meaty Showdown the ultimate report card on the Juicy Lucy. So the mal report Card Juicy Lucy one to ten, with ten being a masterpiece five twenty eight. I gave that only a six. The reason and I gave it a six is because

Matts.

I went pretty high on this one. I gave it an eight. And the reason I gave it an eight, I thought the burger was pretty good. I did like the ambiance. I dockted a point because it was a cash only situation. They did not give large enough portions, so I gave that a minus one point also, so I ended up with an eight. And then the Nook on a Malord report card one to ten, with ten being the greatest of the greatest. I gave the nook

And it was very messy, very messy.

There was cheese everywhere, gooey cheese all over. I got my shirt stained with these. I enjoyed every second of it. Saint Paul is beautiful. I went to the state capitol in Saint Paul checked that out and it was just awesome.

It was great, So good job by the Nook.

It's right across from this baseball field at the local college in Saint Paul. There's a grocery store on the other side. There's a gas station on one other corner.

But it was great.

It was as a barbershop, little barber shop there, So that is the man.

Mothers. They're doing a victory lap right now when they hear this news.

Ben. It was great.

The Knoock was wonderful and if I make my way back to Minnesota, I will go there again. I also did visit quickly, Danny. I visited all of these sporting venues. None of the teams were in town. They the It was so funny. We were at an arcade on Friday night watching the Twins game as they were playing the Angels, which is not far from the north Woods where the

So that must have felt weird.

That was at awkward.

But then I went to Target Field, went to the Viking Stadium, went to the Target Center, and that whole area wandered around there. My my wife thought we were gonna get shanked because we went around sundown. There's a there's like a zombie apocalypse in downtown Minneapolis, Danny, just like you see in LA or San Francisco or New York.

It's no different. It is scary.

There's a bunch of crackheads walking around and totally disheveled and messed up, and you don't know what they're doing. You know, it's not legal whatever they got going on. And fortunately we did not get shanked, and I did take some photos. Maybe I'll post some of those photos today from around Minnesota. I'll do it this weekend at some point. But I went to the to all the stadiums. Viking Stadium is amazing. That's where the old Metrodome used

For the Timberwolves.

So good times, good times all around, and I think we'll get out on that. Anything else, Danny, you want to promote Saturday in the city.

No man, Saturday is for our podcast, so thank you for downloading, and of course we'll be back with the mail mother Sucker tomorrow.

That's right.

I get a mail bag on Sunday, and I really thank you, thank you, thank thank you so much. Tell a friend word of mouth average. I think you've been so great about that. We do appreciate it. We'll have the mailbag for you tomorrow. Have a wonderful rest of your Saturday and we will catch you next time.

I'm gonna go get a cinnamon roll right now and a later skater watch your GPS though Vopulation