The Fifth Hour: Upward Bound

a bootlegger? Now here's a fun fact to begin the Fifth Hour podcast. When I was a little kid, I remember hearing my grandfather on my mom's dad tell a story at dinner when he was growing up in Massachusetts. At one point he did some bootlegging. There's some bootlegging in the Malar family, which was a different name. But back in the day, he went up to Canada. Prohibition started on January seventeenth, nineteen twenty, so one hundred and

five years ago. And the gangsters and mafioso the underworld. They made a fortune, right, they made for you think about the Roaring twenties with jazz and booze and all of that, all of that. But the bootleggers in the south went to Mexico obviously in the north they went to Canada and they made an absolutely. I don't think my family, my grandfather, I don't think he made that much. Otherwise I'd be in a better situation than I am.

But you know, it buzzed around with it, why not. Yeah, it's also there's a bunch of these other dopey holidays. It's Benjamin Franklin Day today. No, I am not named after Benjamin Franklin. I am not. Yeah, but one of our founding father this is he the greatest founding father. Yeah, this is the anniversary of his birth. So I can't

say happy birthday because he's dead. But Benjamin Franklin who made so many contributions, including the science the famous story of Ben Franklin inventing the lightning rod nineteen well non nineteen seventeen, it was like seventeen fifty something. And he coined the term battery. How about that? That was a Benjamin Franklin to when we say battery, I need some new batteries. He also came up with the term charge

conductor and electrify. Those are all Benjamin Franklin terms common terms that he came up with that we still used to. What a legacy for Benjamin Franklin also founded the first subscription library in the seventeen thirties, the Library Common in Philadelphia, and in nineteen I keep saying nineteen, it's the seventeen hunderies.

Seventeen forty one. Ben Franklin. His pamphlet on the Need to Educate Youth in Pennsylvania resulted in the founding of the modern day University of Pennsylvania, penn that to this day remains one of the bougie institutions in America. That was all because of Benjamin Franklin. But wait, there's more. Benjamin Franklin in the seventeen seventies, became the first American ambassador to France. Now, I remember reading stories years ago that he really enjoyed the ladies in France and they

enjoyed him. He really went for it when he went to France. But he was born on this day, seventeen o six, Benjamin Franklin born to an English soap and candle maker that was his pops in seventeen six, and when he was twenty three years old he purchased a newspaper and made a fortune the Pennsylvania Gazette, made a fortune publishing. He used a fake name, pseudonym, and you didn't use Benjamin Franklin's embarrassed by that. So interesting life,

but it's about Benjamin Franklin day today as well. On this podcast, we have The Wanderer, the postgame Palooza, upward Bound, or we'll get to that, maybe have a little foody fun if we have time in the idiom of the week, but we begin with the Wanderer and it is back it, What is it? What is it? Well, that would be Benny versus the Penny in studio. Now, we talked about

last week having to do the show from home. We were chased out of our main studio because of the wildfires here in the LA area, and they closed down the studio, so we were not able to get us

so we did the show from home. Before we get into the return of Benny Versus the Penny, I do have to point out I thought for a show that was put together at the last minute, Vinnie and the guys in Boston did a wonderful job making the show as seamless as possible, and we had all of the bells and whistles that we needed doing the show from

our homes. I have this studio which I'm actually broadcasting in right now, which is the podcast studio, which I do the radio show from occasionally, and I do the podcast out of here. So I built this own, my own little studio, which I actually I want you to know, I built this before COVID. I've talked about this a few times on the podcast, but before COVID. In twenty seventeen, the year the cheating Astros cheated their way to the World Series. They didn't win the World Series, but they

cheated their word of the World Series. But in twenty seventeen, I did fill in work remotely for Wei out of Boston, and so I built this studio and it was at the last house that I lived in and moved it and bought all the equipment and everything, and so I still have all of the nonsense here to do radio. And I only started doing the Fox Sports Radio show from the home studio during COVID. Before that though, I

only did the Boston stuff. But I had everything ready to go, and I did the podcast and all that. So I had all the equipment and had a green screen. Cause years ago we fetched around on YouTube with a version of Benny Versus the Penny. On the YouTube, we had a live chat going. Some of you guys participated

in that. I know Alf was part of that, and that was before Ferd Dog was a member of the Malord militia, and there were some others just Josh and Cincinnati, our friend from the Bay Area who passed away at the end of last year. He was on there as well, and a bunch of the other regulars were participating in that. So I had this green screen, so I dusted that off and I had everything I needed. I was ready to go. It was good to go, So I thought

the show looked pretty good. All things considered, but we were back this week. He was a regular Scot. Little different because there's not as many games Benny Versus the Penny, more of myself and Looney Tunes on the TV show, so we were able to get back in the studio

a normal routine. Went over there after the overnight show on Thursday morning and hung out by myself in the back room across the hall from the studio and put the finishing touches on my notes, which I have to memorize because unlike teleprepter Tom, I do not have a teleprompter and I was there for many many hours. Tom shows up. We have the infamous table read in the back and then we go sit and get miked up and put the makeup on and all that stuff and

do Benny Versus the Penny Show. We'll be on tonight on in b see Sports Boston you can check it out and three shows now. The Celtics play the Orlando Magic as division leaders get together in Beantown. That game in Boston. Game starts at seven o'clock. The Celtics hosting they lead the Atlantic. They're hosting the Southeast leading Orlando Magic, and Orlando actually has a chance tonight to clinch the the season series. But we're not really worried about that.

We're worried about after the game, the Celtics postgame show will take place, and then we go on after that. I think the first airing schedule, depending how long the Celtic game goes for eleven o'clock, but then it's going to air again at eleven thirty again at midnight. So three showings on NBC Sports Boston very important if you're in the Boston area. If you have NBC Sports Boston, please check that out. That is the originator of the show.

That is where the show comes from, and it's produced out of NBC Sports Boston, so it's very important we do well in Boston, and it'll be on there tonight late after the Celtic game. And then also NBC Sports Philadelphia. You'll be able to get Benny Versus the Penny as well. That'll debut tonight at ten thirty tonight at ten thirty

NBC Sports Boston, NBC Sports Philadelphia. Rather you can catch the first running of that at ten thirty and it will air throughout the weekend, so there'll be other opportunities you're not able to watch it or not record it, and then the Bay Area, which it's already aired in the Bay Area several times. It's going to air this morning.

In fact, by the time you get this podcast, it will probably already have been broadcast, and three o'clock, three point thirty it'll be on six o'clock tonight on NBC Sports Boston nine o'clock, so a lot of showings in the Bay Area. The Warriors are not playing today, so that means they need to fill time, and there's no better filler of time than Benny versus the PA. And it'll be on Peacock all weekend, so check that out.

I also have a video up later today of my wandering and they call me the Wanderer, Me and Looney Tunes, who was back for the promotional video, as we walked around the back lot at Universal Studios, and it was a little different this week in the sense that I do not believe Universal Studios, Hollywood the actual amusement park which is right above the back lot, I do not

think it was open. The reason I do not think it is open when we're walking around back there every twenty minutes or every thirty minutes, I think it's every twenty minutes, there's a shuttle, you know those famous Universal Studio shuts, and they go by, and then there's like the VIP shuttle where the people are able to get out and walk around and stuff, and they have tour guides explaining what everything is. So we didn't see any

of that. There were some people working on the sets, and these are like the guys that are blue collar workers, you know, the people that fix everything and make it look all all pretty and take care of the plumbing and move the stuff around. The prop people. We saw a lot of those guys. There were signs up around Universal saying red flag warning, no smoking, things like that.

Because of the fire its Universal Studios is at the base of some mountains, and so obviously that's that's an issue here in southern California with everything going on, so we had a lot of that. I just want to jump to the upward balance. As we're talking about the TV show Benny Versus The Penny, got some really good I mentioned very important, very important. The show does well in Boston, and the way I approach these things, the radio show and the TV show, I never worry about

the ratings. I don't now somebody, So it doesn't matter you're on overnight, We'll trust We always are getting judged, right, We're always getting judged, even doing the overnight show. I have people at other networks that are doing overnight shows. Can I keep the audience more than them? Can we can we add to the audience? Can we grow the audience? Now? Because of podcasting, we not only have the live version, but we have the podcasting version. And so we're lucky

that a lot of you have been loyal. When you've listened overnight and you've worked the third shift, and then you go to the day shift, the dreaded day shift, you still enjoy the show, which is great, which is awesome, and it helps us out a lot that something about this show radiates with you that you want to be part of it. And so that's awesome, and it's great for us because I can go to the corporate weasels and point all that out. But I never worry about it.

I always my position has always been since I used to worry when I first started. I'm not gonna lie to you. When I first started, I was like when I did like mid days, I used to freak out. But as I've gotten older, I spend so much time on this crap. I get to the point now I'm like, well, listen, I put all the effort in and if people are gonna listen, they're gonna listen. I'm going out there. I'm gonn tear up the dance floor. If people like it,

that's great. If they don't like it, that's fine, and that'll the listener, the viewer in this case on TV, will explain to me the issues. Now. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this or not, but what the hell, I'll say it anyway. I'm very excited. We got the ratings for last week. I very rarely get the ratings update because I don't really know. I don't care. They'll tell me if the show's not bad. But we did very well last week in Boston, and we were Yeah.

I don't know how much I can say and how much I can't say, but let's just say we were one of the top shows on TV in our demographic, the demographic we need to get to keep the show on the air. We were awesome. We did very well. We were on late last week too, and we killed it. When I say kill it, I'm like, top five in the market, top three in the market. We destroyed the ratings in Boston, which is awesome and thank you. I

think it was all Alf making. All of his relatives and all of his friends and enemies watched the show, and a few of you other people, you know who you are in Boston. But we did very well. So in the demos that we need to get to watch the show to keep the show going, we did very well. That's only one week, and I don't really worry about it. I'm not gonna worry about it this week. I'm not

gonna worry about it the coming weeks. That'll be sorted out by other people who make more money than me, who will figure out they'll crunch the numbers and all that, and that's on them. But I was very happy to hear that, because you know, I didn't ask for it and just get that kind of news. It's like, hey, that's that's pretty neat, that's pretty cool. All right. Now, turning the page on that, we have the postgame polus.

If you heard last night's overnight show, it was on a Royal Rumble and the Audio Jungle, the first octagon of twenty twenty five Bad Blood as they did the tango. Who are they? Well, we have a big playoff game on Sunday. The main event this weekend the Ravens traveling

to Orchard Park, New York. Or the forecast for the that particular game, it is a picture perfect day, a picture perfect day at Orchard Park, New York on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, the updated forecast anywhere from nine to nine degrees to thirteen degrees with a chance of snow in that game,

Lake effects snow for the Bills and Ravens. But leading into that game, my friend, a longtime supporter of the show and one of the great podcasters and broadcasters Sports with Coleman, he did an interview he covers the Ravens and he did it in with John Harbaugh, and there was a comment made about Bill's fans, and John Harbaugh asked him about what he said to get in trouble

with the Bills fans. He then answered the question and this was like a hotspot that started a wildfire and led to Bill's Mafia weaponizing that and forming Voltron or Bill's Tron and going after my guys Sports with Coleman, and he had Malard Militia on Malarn militia crime. What is Malard militia on malardlussa crime? Makesually so Andy the comic book guy who's from Buffalo but lives in La now and runs a comic book shop. He unloaded on sports with Colman. So I'm getting feedback and I'm not

involved in this. I stay off X during the day. I'm not on there. I've learned my lesson for my health and my perspective on life. It's just better I stay off there. I go on there at night during the show, and that's enough for me. I'm very popular with the porn bots. The bots that are trying to get me to sign up for their only fans account love me. If you send comments out late at night to the live show, you're going to get a lot

of that. Also, it's all over the map. You get a lot of gambling, a lot of fake accounts, a large crevacous women who want you to pay for their only fans And I'm like, God, it's good. I'm sure you're up listening to a sports radio show in the middle of the night, in the middle of the night, unless unless you are not. But the octagon I thought it went pretty well. There were mixed opinions on the octagon.

You can still vote if you're listening and you didn't hear the overnight radio show, It'll be up all day today, all day long, all day long. You can vote. There

are three options. Just go to my ex page Ben Maler on x and you click on the profile there and my cartoon drawing avatar will come up and you can check that out and right there, many many hours to go, you can vote Sports with Coleman, Andy the Comic Book Guy, or draw Those are the three options, and Sports with Coleman at the time we are doing

this podcast is leading. I am concerned though, because once we're doing this very early in the morning here on this Friday, but once the Bill's mafia start to get on their phones later today, once they're done pretending to work any the Comic Book Guy is circling the wagons

of the Bill's stampede attempting to get votes here. So I have a feeling there'll be some shenanigans here, not that that ever happens, But if you want to answer the question who won the twenty twenty five Malard Verbal Octagon between Sports with Coleman, Andy the comic book guy. You can vote on that. Check that out. It'll be up throughout the day today and we'll see what happens with that. With that foody fun, let's get to a

little foody fun, foody fun, let's do it. You're excited, not too much, I think early in the year it's a little slow foodie wise. They want to get through the Super Bowl and then the deals will start popping up. People eat out more once we're through the really cold months of January and February and part of March, and then it starts to warm up. But Taco Bell doesn't care about all that. They've launched a new item, steak garlic nacho fries. Now, this sounds wonderful. It might be

because I'm on a fast. It might be because I'm on a fast, but it sounds wonderful. It's available for a limited time. It started yesterday, on the sixteenth day of January. But what's not to like about that. You got the fries, you got the garlic, you got the cheese, the whole thing. The steak sounds good to me. A Dominoes on Foody Fun fifty percent off pizza deal back, but for a limited time, and like every deal now

there are no deals. If you walk into a fast food restaurant like Dominoes and you buy food off the menu, you are a rube. You are a sucker. You gotta get the apps. Now I realize the apps are tracking you, but you gotta get the apps all of the deals like fast food. We've talked about this in previous episodes of The Fifth Hour, but fast food is still pretty cheap if you use the apps. If you don't use the apps, you were paying a premium on all of that food. Right, you are the sucker in the room.

You are the sucker in the room. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I mean, you look at that, it's like, what all right, what in the world, What in the world are you doing? Little Caesars Pizza, Pizza Pizza. They're offering free crazy bread with any pizza purchase. That is through February eight, so that's actually through the Super Bowl, So you got some time to do that. And I saw this story and I thought this would be perfect for FOODI Fund, so I wanted to share it with you.

It's from one of the food websites that I occasionally check out. This was the other day. It's from eat this, not that, eat this, not that I think, it's eat this dot com. So they had seven ways fast food chains get you to spend more money, and the I guess I'll go from seven to number one right now. This is not a list terry in England. This is a big board. It's not what I came up with. So it's not you can't say you're doing list podcast. I'm not you, jackass. Number number seven on the Big Board.

Number seven. Celebrity endorsements. The power of the celebrity. I often wonder why why fast food restaurants partner with celebrities. Well, turns out, sure enough, because people buy more fast food. The Travis Scott meal with McDonald's was so successful that they ran out of ingredients because people wanted to have that connection with Travis Scott. So, celebrity endorsements they get you to spend more money because you see the celebrity

and you're a sucker. First, celebta not you, but other people, toys, toys and collectibles. Bob Bernstein, the guy that created the Happy Meal in the late nineteen seventies, he said, big advertising executive, he said, we were losing our endorsements of the kids. He said, we wanted to re establish ourselves with kids and the family and say we were kid friendly. So they came up with that, and McDonald's ever since it's like one of the top toy producers and all

we know the story about that. So these fast food chains, Burger King and Wendy's have had issues trying to get families because they don't give crap away, and McDonald's has always been way ahead when it comes to giving the crap away. Third party livery places like uber eats. Some of you boys deliver Uber eats or it's not just Uber Eats, but you do that kind of stuff, and that is a way to drive up the price of food. And this is what I don't get, Like, I'm glad

a lot of people pay for the food. And because there's fellas that listen. I know FAMI and Minnesota for example, and some of the other guys that are big fans of the show aren't delivering Uber eats late at night. So I'm glad you guys have employees, or not employees, we have customers. The thing that just blows me always, like the surcharge on that is so ridiculous that the people that buy the food off uber eats often end up spending twice as much money. We went over this

in a previous episode. And because they they end up through delivery, you got to add the fees and the tips and all that, so you end up paying a ton ton extra for what is supposed to be a cheap meal. Number four is the combo meal. You end up getting food you don't want. You upsize the combo because it's only a little bit more, and you end up getting stuff that you didn't really want when you

went into the store. Number three is the dreaded kiosk. Yeah, customers who ordered at the kiosk, we talked about this in the past two but they spent almost ten percent more than those that order from a human Now. The reason that that works out the way it does is because the people working at fast food restaurants just want to get your order and get the hell to get your way, and they want to make your food and they want to move on to the next customer. But

the kiosk is ai. It's robotic, and they obviously don't care, and so they upsell you. Say, would you like to add fries? Would you like to add GUACAMOLEI would you like to have add a stick up your ass? And you're like, yeah, that was pretty good. I'd like to add a stick up my ass. That's solid. I'll add that. Why not, I'll coick the little button. It's only an extra seventy five cents for the stick up my ass. Wonderful.

I was attracted to the giant metal cock number two, the buy one, get one free option where people end up not realizing that the price of they ignore the high cost of the item the buy one item, and they end up getting They think they're getting a better deal because they're getting two items. But the they say, the people that study this stuff, they claim, well, it's drives up sales because people think they're getting better. And then think about the write up the markup on this food.

If they raise the prices they give you two for one, they're still making money on it, giving you two for the price of one. So when you go in there and buy one, what a ripoff that might be? Or it must be? And N one number one is a trick that every business, every retail business uses. It is

a weasel move in terms of pricing. So weasel move and menu items are priced to end at what that's right, ninety nine sense, kind of like when you buy gas, you buy gasoline and they price it at ninety nine cents at the end normally, normally now you know, one of those other things. Sometimes they will not do that, but normally it's they try to keep it right around ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine percent. And it is

the term is psychological pricing. Psychological pricing. They are able to trick you into thinking the price is significantly lower than it is. It is a glitch that we all have. And the marketing people who study human nature and so they raise prices, and they know when they raise the price, demand's gonna fall. But rather than go to five dollars, if they go to four ninety nine, or rather than go to four dollars and go to three ninety nine, perception will be, hey, it's not that bad. I'm actually

getting a deal. It's not. It's not five dollars, it's four ninety nine. If they change the name of five guys to four ninety nine guys, that would be a better deal, a much better deal. All right, time now for the idiom of the week. The idiom of the week on the Fifth Hour podcast. So the endeam this week is a tribute. It is paying homage to Doc mic. Now Doc Mike doesn't call the show as much anymore. He's in Chicago. He's I'm still working, but he's busy and he's not up and we're on anymore. So he

didn't call very often. But in honor of Doc Mike, the idiom of the week is piss poor, piss poor, the idiom of the week. Now, this is gonna be amazing audio for the doc. The good doc. You got the Doc, Doc Mike. So urine, that's right. Urine has been used going back to the Roman times and even before that as a preparatory item for tanning, to help remove the hair from hides before applying tanning agents and whatnot.

The Romans the famous story they collected urine for the purpose of systemically and for that purpose I should say systemically, which is for the tanning and whatnot. And they even the Emperor of Rome in the first century put attack on piss. They put a tax on urine. Now that was obviously way before any of us we're around from that time, the the first century a d. The emperor. I guess the guy's kid objected to the the tax

revenues they were making from urine. And the legend is that the Emperor of Rome, the first Emperor uh Vespian I believe is his name. Anyway, he responded by saying to his son, money doesn't smell. And a version of that line is still used today that you know, money isn't tainted by how it starts. You know, it's all money is good money. Blah blah blah blah blah. That started because of the first first century Roman emperor. Now, in terms of what we're dealing with here, the the

origins of the idiom piss poor. It actually has nothing to do with tanny, It has nothing to do with the Romans and none of that. The current theory suggests that it was invented during the Second World War. That there are the first written examples go back to nineteen forty six, the year my late mother was born. Nineteen

forty six. And though it is still classified as slang, and you know dictionaries and all that, the origins rather obvious, right, piss began being attacked attached to a bunch of other words. This is in the twentieth century to help kind of jazz up their meaning, right, the jazz up the meaning and all that. It was Ezra Pound who invented the term piss rotten. Piss rotten. That would be in nineteen forty, so we're going back a few years. Nineteen forty that

that began. And if you don't know Ezra Pound is it was. He was a poet and a critic, an American poet, so he came up with the term piss rotten. And ever since then there's been piss easy, which means something's very easy, piss weak, you are cowardly, you're pathetic, piss elegant and that is refined and pretentious. You're piss elegant. There's obviously piss ant. There's that means you're meaningless and small, piss awful, which is very unpleasant, and piss poor. So

there he is. During the Second World War terms it seems that some of the equipment was not not up to snuff. Not up to snuff, shall we say. So there it is. That is the idiom of the week, piss poor. Get out on that. No NFL today, there's some basketball. Make sure to check out Benny versus the Pennies on Peacock. My guy Danny G will be producing this podcast and he will be back with me on the microphone. Should be back with me on the Saturday

Pod and the Sunday Pod. Have a wonderful Friday. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to this podcast, and we'll catch you next time later. Skater, huh asta pasta? Did I get that right? Danny wrong? Arivaderce, you killed it now, let's blow this popsicle stand Nah, all right, the show's over, Go home, got a murder, I gotta go