Kutbooms.
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, it's the clearinghouse of hot takes. Break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in.
The a every way, welcome in. It is the Fifth Hour, you know that already with Ben Maller and Danny G Radio and we're hanging out. You're like, what are you doing? It's Saturday. You shouldn't be working now. We work every day, Danny, no days off, no days off. It's either live radio during the week or a little podcast fun.
Yep on the weekends.
And this is the part of the sports calendar where the weak asses who try to do sports go run and hide, and the strength of the sports backbone of America come out and not only cover baseball but also professional marble shooting.
Damn right, And I am never ever concerned. I remember when I first started in radio, and this time of the year, guys would freak out. They'd have anxiety attacks. Every radio station I worked at when I was a young kid. I started in the business was in nineteen it's like nineteen twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty. These guys would be shitting bricks.
What are we gonna do?
There's nothing going on, you know. But at least back in those days there was interest in baseball more now than now. You know, they did talk baseball on the radio, but they'd always go back to the default answer, which was Pete Rose, should he be reinstated into baseball? Oh? That was always the go to.
They had to make up their own fake drama.
Yeah, well, it's like the news shows in those days. They did abortion. I guess that's still a thing all these years later. And guns that was also So there's like certain boilerplate topics that you do when you do a radio show. But yet it's so easy, not easy, but it's so much easier than it had been now because just about every professional athlete is feeding the content kitty by saying stupid things or doing stupid things, and so we didn't have that before, not this time of
the year. So it's been pretty good on this podcast. The Saturday Special. We've got Big John, the scene of the crime, fifteen point two miles, Phrase of the week, and Pop goes the culture. That's a lot of content. We're gonna have to get through it quickly, so we will attempt to get through everything. I always put too much in the show. If you noticed that, Danny, have you noticed that?
Yes, it works out well because you listen to these in order, hopefully, and it all just flows over like a waterfall.
Yeah.
I try to shove fifteen pounds of crap and a two pound bag is what I try to do. So Barbi, this life of mal or life of Danny g is what we often do on the Saturday podcast. I last weekend, I had dinner with a buddy of mine and yesterday we told the story about the cheeseburger in Paradise. And you didn't hear that story. You can go back, So I.
Go dirty Burger.
Yeah exactly. So my wife was working and I had the option. I could have stayed home and made some food by myself. And I was like, my wife's like you should go out, you should you know, go you know, meet your friends or whatever. So it's like okay, you know, and I called a few people up and they're like, I can't go do my wife won't let me go, or you know, you know that kind of thing, you know, things you get when you're a middle aged man asking friends to go to dinner on a Saturday. So whatever.
So I went down my roll the decks and I found a friend I used to work with in Rady who's been on this podcast. Who you know, the Prince of Darkness, the original Prince of Darkness, Lee Ah Kleine. So I met Lee at the one of our old places who I used to hang out with Lee all the time when I was a young guy, because no women would hang out with me, but Lee would hang out with me.
And we used to still a dark cloud that follows over the top of him as he walks.
Yes, oh, we'll get to that in a minute. So I met my friend Lee. I haven't seen him since April, and we check out, you know, we check check check out our and we catch up. As what I'm trying to say, we catch up every few months. And so we go to old Stomgres So I used to live kind of near If you're familiar with the geography of Los Angeles, I used to live right near where the Grove is Farmer's Market in LA and Lee lives in the South Bay kind of that part of LA in
that area. So halfway we determined was Calver City. So we would often meet in Culver City because it was halfway. There's a movie studio there. It's like a movie it's like a movie TV time. So we met in Culver City at one of our old stomping grounds, Johnny's Pastrami, which is a legendary pastrami place there and they've been around forever. And so it's Saturday night. Now. I had actually gone to the Angel game prior to going to Johnny's Pastrami. So I met my friend Lee after the game.
So we get there and we're debating what the order. Now you have two options. Now we've been there so much we know the entire menu. We also remember when it was actually affordable to eat a Johnny's pastrami, which was I think twenty years ago. Anyway, so whatever, doing this a long time. So we decide, I'm like I'm getting I'm going pastrami. You go to Johnny's astrom It's in the name. I'm gonna get Astromi. But they also make really good burgers, and so Lee's like, I'm getting
the Big John. That's what I'm getting, a Big John, because that's a really good it's like a double burger. It's it's pretty big. So and they give you other stuff on the side. All right, So we order the food and the waitress is nice. You know, they're not that busy whatever. There's a little fire pits so you can sit outside. We sat outside. There's not much inside seating. It's an old school diner. So we're waiting for the food comes. There's a basket of fries in the middle
community property. There's pastrami on my side, same as I remember. And then Lee gets the burger and it looks totally different than what it had looked like. Now you have two options. You can either just eat the burger and say that's fine, or you can raise Holy Hell, like this is a war crime and you have just you know, you need to go to Dante's Inferno. What do you think my friend Lee did, And you know him and you've had some situations with him in the past, what do you think he did?
Yeah, well, you know my experience with him.
I don't think the listeners really know, but the first time I met him, he just made racist joke after racist Mexican joke. And it turns out I'm Spanish and Sicilian, I'm not Mexican, But anyways, that doesn't matter to a guy like him. And he's like really loud, and some of it's playful. So I can see, you know, at the at your Christmas party, we're kind of laughing, like
this guy needs to drink another one. But I'm going to say, in a situation like this, and he's already probably in a bad mood for overpaying for a burger that would have been affordable twenty years ago, so he probably went and raised hell at the front.
Yeah, so it's it's a total ship show now that Lee. Uh. The way he breaks the ice, he's he's older. And the way he breaks the ice he is, uh to make offensive comments. That's how he breaks the ice at social eng so, uh, don't take it personally, Danny. He does it everywhere. It's very uncomfortable.
But anyway, so he called somebody a beaner there too at the restaurant racist.
Uh No, there was no but but but anyway, so whatever, anyway, Lee, Uh, you know, he's he's complaining.
He's a lovable older guy. He's kind of like your racist grandfather.
Yeah, exactly. So anyway, he's complaining to the to the waitress. So she can't you know, they come back, how's your food? Which is a rhetorical question, she just did. If you ask that, if you just you assume great, nobody's gonna say no. And but he did. He's like, that's just this is not a big John. You know, this is not this is not what I ordered.
This is a little John.
And uh so she looks at the burger and she kind of ex amz is it? And she said, well, no, that's a that's a big John. And he says, no, it's not. I've been coming here for you know, thirty years, and I've had this burger, you know, hundreds of times, and that ain't the big Johnt. And she she looks at it again and she examines the burger and she says, that's a big John. And then here, you know, we're going back and forth and he's like, well, no, that's not what I paid for. I don't give me the menu.
Where's the menu? So he's like pointing at the menu, and she says, well and then he's like, oh, how long you worked here? And the and the waitress is like, well, I worked here like four years or something like, well, I've been coming here thirty right. So he's going on and on, and I'm like, I'm like, oh, mercy, get
me out of here, you know, I am. And then so so they're going back and forth, and then of course it's, uh, you know, where's the owner, you know, where's the manager, you know that kind of thing, whether they're not here. You know, it's, uh, you know, I can't do anything they're not here. And then Lee's like, oh, of course you can't do anything. You know, that's the
the world these days and all that stuff. So we went back and forth and he finally just gave up, which is shocking, and said, fine, I'll eat the burger and I will never come here again.
Now, more importantly, how was your pastrami?
Where it was great? It was wonderful, And it was good because if I had given my pastrami back, they would have spit Loogi's all over the pastrami if I'd given the food back. But I did not do that, and fortunately everything was all right. But yeah, it was it was uncomfortable and I've had my shared Danny of uncomfortable situations, and I try to not make a scene. I I attempt to be like a wall, like a plant on a wall, A wallflower is what I try
to be, just in the background there. But occasionally I get dragged in to these situations. So the Big John.
But it backfired a little bit because by the time he finally ate it, after he gave up, it was probably cold.
Yes, yes it was. I will have more on the coldness at another point, possibly this podcast. I might even have it on this podcast. Johnny SPASTROMI was the scene of the crime, but not the scene of the crime, if you know what I'm saying, Dan.
Yeah, it sounds like a couple of overpriced places are going to be mentioned on this Saturday edition of Our Fifth Hour. If you remember back to two baseball seasons ago, and I spoke about it on this very podcast. The WiFi and I at the time, I think we were engaged. We took the family to Opening Night at Dodger Stadium, and we were so excited. The seats were pricey, but you kind of expect that for Opening day slash Opening Night.
What we did expect was the price of parking, the overpriced food, which you know it's been overpriced in the past, but now it's gone up tenfold. We wound up that night spending nine hundred and fifty.
Dollars, Blank my blank, and blank you.
A family of five for Dodger Stadium nine hundred and fifty dollars.
Yes, so reminds you when I was a kid and they used to have commercials the greatest deal in town. Dodger Baseball got out. Family of four could come out for thirty dollars. Okay, yep.
Obviously left a really bad taste in our mouth. We have not gone back to the ballpark since because that we can't afford that, and it's easier and better to just watch on our big flat screen in the living room. But somebody offered me some seats, got four comp seats and it was will smithlehead night. But I have an eight month pregnant woman who needs to get as close to the seats as possible. So the first security person told us where to go for special parking that would
put us right near our section. And when we finally get around the stadium, it's the back end of the stadium where you can see the La City Skyline. Two rude security guards later, we finally found Bugs, who listens to this podcast bat right Bugs Bugs? And you know why because after I introduced myself and talked to Bugs, I told him all about the fifth hour, and he promised he was going to tune in on his phone.
Right, And I said, give him a shout out. He is the man.
He runs the parking lot basically, so all the radio calls were coming to him, and so he put us.
In parking spot twenty.
He stood there and blocked the traffic while he let me back into the spot.
It was beautiful.
But then when we got out of the car and we started walking into the stadium, another security guard was like, oh yeah, you have to walk like three blocks that way. So here's my pregnant wife waddling like a big penguin and I'm like, okay, let's go slow.
We're not in a hurry.
First forty thousand get this bobblehead. But we'll definitely be part of that first forty thousand. So we get in there, we get our bobbleheads, and you know how it is with bobblehead night, What a thrill to hold that up. It's like you know Lion King where they're holding the next king up to the sky?
Heid you Jesus.
Instead of nine hundred and fifty dollars I paid dinner, I paid parking.
What do you think it costs this time?
Well, I actually happened to be at that game Tuesday night, Danny. I didn't know you were there. What I would have said low to you and your wife. But I did walk around and I looked at the concessions, and my my eyeballs literally popped out of my head when I looked at the price of the food. So is you? Your wife? Was it just and who?
And two of the kids?
The kids? And then the kids are they're cha teenagers? Okay, so they eat a lot. I'm gonna say, for all four of you food parking, did anyone get a souvenir?
Uh? Just a clear carry bag for my wifey?
Did you buy that outside the stadium? One of those guys hacked hawking them outside of the station.
No. I bought it inside the gift shop.
Okay, so that costs you a lot more money. I'm gonna say.
Two point fifty really good, guess all right?
Two and twenty five dollars for the whole night.
All right, there you go. So as long as you don't have to buy the tickets, you're you're, you're okay.
I guess that's what I was saying.
And I want to get some more seats and give them away to our listeners that are in southern California, because how in the hell can you bring your family nowadays to a ballpark and pay for all of that.
No, it's it's insane. It's absolutely insane. And uh yeah, it's what did you eat? By the way, what did you did you get the chicken? There's a bunch of new restaurants at Dodger Stadium, like, there's all kinds.
Of I found my way down to level two for the food. It was like a Mexican spot racist carne asada fries as well as nachos, and then a couple of Dodger dogs and oh and a couple of carnea sada tacos.
See, all right, let me know the next time you because I have a hookup with the Dodger Dogs. I can get your free Dodger dogs. I can do that. That's about all I can get you.
Yeah, you have a long trench coat with Dodger dogs stuffed inside the pocket.
Yeah, I know I know a guy, all right, and you know I know a guy that would would help me with that. But that's about it. Yeah, all right, Well there you go.
So you go much much better experience.
And we were like, wow, that was nice back after a two year protest. It was like we were Oakland A's fans for two years.
Yeah, I have not been out that much. I think I'm gonna get out there more now. You know, they're they're forcing me against my will to come back to the studio quite often. So I'm not in the north Woods. It's a long drive and all that. Well, speaking of that, I have my own Dodger related story to share and we'll calling this fifteen point two miles. So I was
at the same Dodger game Danny was at. It was on a Tuesday night, and so I have a whole routine, It's a whole all this michigans I have to go through to go to a game because I work at night and I have to prepare for the show and all this. So and I live so far away, it's like when I come in, it's a hole to do. So to go and plan out the whole night. I was like, Okay. Originally I was going to eat it. I get a bite to eat at the house, save a little money. But my wife had worked an extra
long shift at the police station. She's a nine one to one operator, so she worked an extra long shift. And she normally normally have lunch together, or she'll make food for me or whatever, because on workdays I don't really cook. And so and I happened to be eating this dance and I didn't want to get up early. So I was like, all right, I'll go find some food. So I was like, I go anywhere I want, you know. And I was like, you know what I'm gonna do. I love Tito's Tacos. Oh yeah, I know. I'm gonna
stop by Tito's. I'll pick up some tacos. I'll quickly get back on the road and I'll make it to Dodger Stadium. I'll then eat the tacos in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium. I will then go in and I will prepare for the show. I had all planned out in my head, right, best laid plans of mice men and gas bags. So and it happened to be Taco Tuesday, not that it matters. And so Tito's Tacos is so good that I will literally empty my wallet.
And it is the worst. The price gouge you. It's like a hotel after a hurricane and there's one room available. They just gouge you. It's so embarrassing what they do at that place. Five sixty five for a taco with cheese. One taco they charged like a dollar fifty for cheese. That's obscene too, But for me, five sixty five's about my limit. Yeah, taco and I got a few tacos and they give you a big box. And the cool thing about Tito's they give you a box and they put chips in there and salsa.
What did that used to cost you at Tito's.
I used to go. I remember my order. I could get five tacos and it was like, I think it was like eighteen bucks or something like that one point when I first started going there. And I'm the kind of guy when I go to restaurants, like I'm back when I was single, I would always count out, I'd cash. I paid with cash. Now everyone pays with Curray cars.
But I'd always bring the exact amount. And I can't tell you the number of times I would go to Tito's and over the years, and I'd bring the exact amount, and then it'd be like, well that's two dollars more. Now we raised our prices, you know.
I was like, wait a minute, So.
Anyway, so I get to the point, please, so I get my tacos. I'm excited. I now I couldn't eat them at Tito's. And the reason I couldn't eat them at Titos, Danny, is I have not a handicap. But I had my gallbladder taken out a few years back. I think it was twenty twenty nineteen. I believe it was,
So I had my gallbladder taken out. So when you have your gallbladder taken out, if you eat greasy foods and you fast, it is those are all the ingredients to a cluster bomb coming right out of your banunca dunk. So I have to be close to a bath. Not could have. I could have eaten at Titos and just waited about half an hour for the explosion to happen. But I decided not to do that because I wanted to be closer to Dodger stay in and I figured
traffic would pile up. So I got my tacos, I get in the car, and I was literally only at Tito's for like five minutes. There was no line because why would there be aligned Most people don't want to pay five sixty five for tacos. They used to always be a line there, there'd be fifteen lines. Now every time I go, there's no line whatever. So I get in the car, I get set the GPS, I'm driving. I'm driving, I'm cruising, and all of a sudden, oh no,
nothing but tail lights. Now, if you're not familiar with LA, there's a freeway, the ten Freeway, which guy know goes all the way across the country, but in La proper it ends at the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica. From the west side of LA goes all the way through like Brent Woods around there, Culver City, the West Way. These are some of the most congested parts of Los Angeles.
I would argue that that ten through Culver City is the worst freeway in southern California, and.
I wouldn't disagree. Somehow, I had so I had a brain fog and I just typed in the GPS I didn't really look at the time, and I got on the ten Freeway and it was fifteen point two miles from Tito's to Dodger Stadium. You want to take a guess how long it took me to get from Tito's Tacos three thirty in the afternoon on a Tuesday, to enjoy my nice lunch and then go to work.
What do you think, day, I'm going to say that fifteen miles took an hour and fifty seven minutes.
Well, you actually went over, so you don't win. The showcase showed own. It took ninety minutes. To me, that was in ninety minutes an hour and a half to go fifteen point two two miles. Slap me around a little bit. That included me getting off the freeway and circumventing through surface streets some of that. So what do you think happened to my nice, hot, warm Tito's tacos that I paid five sixty five for each?
Oh, they turned into cold, crappy.
Soggy, gooey ice ice baby Tito's tacos And that was my and I still ate them because there were five sixty five each, Dandy, I still ate those those damn tacos. I ate them, but my goodness, what a freakin' I'll never do that again. I've now determined now I might go to Tito's again because I'm addicted because I went there for years and it brings me back to when
I a younger time in my life. But I will only go to Sherman Oaks because you can get to Sherman Oaks quicker, which is I don't know how many miles that is, but it only takes like a half an hour to get to Sherman Oaks, ninety minutes to go to downtown. He blew me off at a hotel near La x. All right, moving on, we have the phrase of the week. I think we'll push pop culture due to time reasons here because I am on time mall or buy the clock four the clock evenly plausibly
about the clock. We'll push that to the Sunday pops.
Did this start? Well?
I just began. It just began actually today. I just started it today and I thought that would be good. So the phrase of the week, are you ready for it? Not the word of the week, that's that's old phrase of the week.
Phrase of the week.
Yes, phrase of the week. Here it is sex, drugs and rock and roll. The phrase of the week, Danny g sex drugs and rock and roll, which is an idiom, and that came up with me. That came up on the show. That that's it. That's an idiot, right, that's a you know, old expression of colloquialism or whatever. So it came up on the on the radio show, and I was like, where did that come from? I know rock and roll? The term rock and roll was a d in Cleveland that is credited with coming up with that.
That's why the rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland, and so that's why they have that there. I was like, what's up with the sex, drugs and rock and roll? And I'd mentioned it for some reason on the show, and I was like, what is going on? And so I did a little search and I looked it up. Do you know where that phrase came from?
Then?
Are you familiar with the phrase?
No?
No, I figured it was like from Chuck Berry doing cocaine or something.
A bunch of hookers and cocaine. Yeah, exactly. Well, the phrase was actually coined by a British singer and a musician named Ian Dewry. I think that's your pronounce his name, do you r y? You ever heard of that guy?
No?
Yeah, I never heard him either. So he wrote and released a single in nineteen seventy seven, that's when the term started, nineteen seventy seven, and he called it sex, Drugs and rock and Roll. And he released the song under his own name. He had been part of a punk band called Ian Dury and the Blockheads. That sounds like that sounds like a good name for a punk bank. My favorite part of the story, though, here's my favorite part.
You're ahead.
So this guy creates this song called sex, Drugs and rock and Roll, and no one gave a fuck. Nobody bought the song. The song was not a hit. It sold in the entire world nineteen thousand copies. That's it. Wow, that's all but the phrase, the title of the song, what a rip? I know, right? How pissed must that guy's dead now he died.
He should have at least made some money off the stupid song.
I know, right. And maybe it's a terrible song. I don't know, I've never heard.
Yeah, so it was a good slogan, but not a good song.
Maybe, yeah, it's a good name for a restaurant, but the food sucks. You know, It's like it's like Dick's last resort. You're like, oh that food.
I don't know about that.
Yeah, anyway, So that is the phrase of the week. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Created nineteen seventy seven by a random punk musician from Britain and singer, and the song was a dud. Nobody bought it, but the term has lived on. That guy died twenty he's got at age fifty seven. He was, you know, relatively young. You're not supposed to die at that age. And he died in two thousands, so he's been gone for twenty three years, and still to this day that term is used regularly.
DJs have single handedly kept that phrase alive.
How about absolutely So it is Saturday dandy and anything you want to promote here your day of rest today.
You know it's called adulting. People always say that term. I've always fought back, so I'm not part of it. But last weekend we were refrigerator shopping at best Buy.
Oh that's fun.
Oh god, I wanted to kill myself with a nail gun. So with a stupid tape measure I'm like, you know, looking at these refrigerators, and the refrigerator we ordered is going to be dropped off today.
Oh my goodness, how exciting.
Now someone needs to be there and the delivery driver will call and give you a five hour window.
That you have. Oh no, you're gonna love this.
Here's their window they gave us today, seven am to seven pm.
I don't care.
I'm leaving goodbye a bunch of clowns.
That's it's terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible terrible. Well, I have nothing going on today, family day, wife day. I'm sure we'll get into some and we'll tell you all about it on the podcast next week. Have a wonderful rest of your day whatever you're doing, and we will catch you on the mailbag. And yeah, there's some pop goes to the culture stories as well. An added bonus will push that to Sunday.
We'll catch you then later. Skater populations