The Fifth Hour: Waiting on Skid Row

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 gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to 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 Maller and Danny g Radio. On this nineteenth day of July, we were hanging out early in the morning here settling into a Saturday Saturday Saturday and Danny.

Back with us here on this day.

We have the lump of coal lost at the park and the neon pink plastic sausage that we will discuss in great detail today, which is very important to cover on the Fifth Hour podcast. As we are are here hanging out and there's no dopey holidays, I wass.

Looking at dope.

There's nothing today.

That really Oh that's good. We could talk baseball for a second, because our Dodgers picked up right where they left off.

Tremendous offensive baseball team. The Doyers the greatest team ever assembled. I learned that before they had played a game. This year, Danny, I learned the Dodgers the greatest team in baseball, greatest team ever assembled in baseball, the reigning World champions. This is another magical year of Dodger baseball. They have actually a good record.

That's why it's so good to have money in the bank when you start sucking, and when life starts sucking, you have some money to fall back on.

Yeah, it'd be nice if some of the guys the Dodgers gave the lottery too would actually show up and contribute.

Uh it does anyone who were Blake? What is Blake? Do you know where Blake Snell is? Danny g or we are we aware of you? Have you him? Have you spotted him?

I can't even remember what that dude looks like, to be honest with you, except I know he's got a punishable face.

Very punishable face. And what the other guy they wanted. I know he's got a blister problem for the Yankees, but he's been an All star. Max Freed, who grew up a Dodger fan, and instead they signed David Vasse's buddy Blake Snell, who's been malingering all two starts. The guys made two starts all year for the for the Doyers who got shut out last night and had how many hits? Not one, not to just three hits against the Brewers. And now I know this guy, Quinn Priester,

You know, I mean, I'm fall Yeah, earlier in the season, I remember seeing some highlights from a kame through on Sports Center. But that's the sort of picture that when you have a strong lineup, you still should be able to hit that dude. Three hits is pathetic.

Yeah, well, they're still in vacation mode.

You know, when you come back to work after you've been on vacation, you're still on your in vacation mode.

Clearly that's the issue doing some.

Bullsh isn't it. You said going into the break they went break. Currently now they're on an extended break. That sucks.

Oh, they're all gazillionaires. They don't have the laser like focused Danny.

They don't.

I mean, it's obvious they're just this is the thing they assume and it Last year they didn't look like they were gonna win the World Series around this time.

They're so arrogant over there. They're like, oh, when we.

Get to late August, we'll flip the switch, and you know, until proven otherwise, maybe they will.

I wouldn't bet on it. They don't look like.

A championship team to me from what I've seen this year. The bullpen has been overused. They're gonna have to trade for two or three relief pitchers. The starting rotation is like they have. It's just there's a lot of things fed up with that. But enough of that.

I was gonna say, I like this though. It's like a little taste of what we got on AM five seventy LA Sports when you were on the air with Jonas Knox.

Oh yeah, people were upset with'd be oh, why have you been so negative about the Dodgers. Everyone on the station is always nice about the Dodgers. I don't care what the other people do during the day. I focus on tough love. I want to see the Dodgers do well, but I'm not going to sit there and lick their toes when they're playing like this.

I'm not going to do it.

So last week Danny I tried to eat at Cole's. Now, for those that are not listening, most of people listen aren't in southern California.

So if you're not from Los Angeles or been to LA. Even if you've been to LA, you may not know.

Coles is a legendary French dip sandwich shop in downtown Los Angeles, a place that is so entrenched in the LA mythology, if you will coal La mythology, that it's the offering that it's a French dip place, and it's semi sagree. Now, it's not at the in and out burger level, because the in and out burgers all over

That's one of the places I still need to get to, all right.

So this is the kind of place that you know it In La there's not a lot of things that are old.

Anything old they get rid of and put some new.

And so this is a place that has character, which is another way of saying it's kind of a rundown neighborhood. It's on the wrong part of town. It's on the wrong side of the tracks. You might see a rat you know, in the you know, on the street out in front of it. You know it's in just But anyway, listen, I said, we're going to go there. So we had all mapped out, left the north Woods, headed into the Big City one final supper, Danny, because Cole's announced a

I did not know they were closing, so yeah, it's a big to get there quick.

So another great thing for Mayor Karen Bashier. In Los Angeles, another iconic restaurant closing. So Cole's announced they were shutting down, and like any great institution which is facing its last supper on its deathbed, suddenly everyone needs to be there, right because they're closing.

So now everyone's like, I gotta go, I gotta go.

Jeah.

So all the people me included, who ignored the restaurant for probably decades, now now it's just craziness. It's like the line wrapped around the block, like it's some amazing movie premiere.

Probably some idiots like me who heard about it for years but never got to go.

Oh yeah yeah.

So me and the wife hop as we said, it happened in the malamobile. We drive into downtown, which, if you have not been recently to downtown Los Angeles, it's not exactly a brunch in Malibu. It's twenty twenty five downtown it is. It's to describe it. It's skid Row. The restaurant's literally right next to skid Row. It's a dystopian world, think Sodom and Gomora without the orgies, although there might be some of those going on, but I didn't see any, just the aftermath. And so opened up

On skid Row.

We are talking Mad Max meets walking dead, crackheads dancing in the street. To the right, we saw the fentanyl fold. To the left, you know, Zombie five slumped over. You know, these guys, they didn't really were alive or not. There was a person that who I think and in my way of describing this for you listening, I think this is the person that dotted the eye like the Ohio State Marching band. So was this black dude who who clearly was having a bad day, torn up from the

The other leg had.

Been ripped and torn, so it looked like he was wearing half shorts, half pants showing his boxer shorts. So at least he had underwear on. This guy was completely bedraggled, covered in dirt.

Right, the shoes like.

Were barely there. They looked like clown shoes. They were all torn up. I mean this I was really in tough shape. And my favorite part though, so just imagine this guy's covered in dirt, He's got pants on, but only one leg has the pant leg. The other leg it looks like shorts, no shirt, just completely messed up, frazzled.

But he had the bling bling on.

When I say bling bling, Danny, that would be a court ordered ankle monitor, which is high fashion on kid row. So this guy had it all going on. He was on the catwalk, man, he had the ankle monitor, which you could clearly see. So at least he was being mined way.

So how does that work he's not allowed to leave his street.

I don't Yeah, that's a great question, Danny. I have no idea.

I'd never seen that before, so this was new to me. I didn't know that that you could just roam around with that on. But the guy had he clearly had. I have seen that before, We've all seen it. He had an ankle, one of those big black ankle monitor things on.

His as it was.

The other thing is the right, right or left? I think he might have left left leg. He was stopped right in front of Coles.

It's house arrest. What happens if you have no house? You can just go anywhere. I guess, yeah, so he was halfway between. It's like one of those cautionary tales. Or was it performance art or something like that.

There was also a woman I spotted screaming at a lamp post. I guess the lamp post had been mean to her. So, I mean, there was so much going on. It was like an art.

Installation down on skid Row. And I don't know.

It was just wild and so everyone's like half the people are like they don't know whether they're awake or asleep.

They looked at there's zombies.

There's people talking to themselves and then yelling to the ones having a conversation.

That one's yelling.

Anyway, listen. There were tents everywhere. It was a tense city. It's remember Blade Runner without the budget.

So finally, right in the middle.

Of this is the restaurant Coals, which is a after describing the neighborhood, it's a charming first floor even like underground, there's like a speakeasy in Coals brick building, this old building from La old from probably the eighteen hundreds. There's like a neon sign kind of flickering. It's kind of like a boxer, the old boxer that doesn't want to quit and just wants to keep fighting and all that stuff.

People in line at eight in the morning waiting for an Otani bobblehead.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It was.

It was ridiculous.

So it was hot, and you know, there was a guy doing shadow boxing in flip flops.

That was all part of the experience.

So it's essentially people standing around the Titanic trying to get one last selfie with the band on the Titanic before it sinks off into the Atlantic.

But everyone is here because it's ending.

The restaurant is done, and it's as you said, it's not because they needn't really care about the food. It's just this apocalypse type nostalgia thing, like this place is going away. It's been around since like the eighteen hundreds or whatever, so or I guess theah, I think the eighteen I think it might maybe early nineteen hundreds, probably early nightte units. But either way, it's it's going and people probably were mumbling about the good old days and

I didn't park.

We saw the line, we drove around the block, and we just kept driving. We drove right past it, you know, past the history and all that stuff, past the people clinging on to that last bite of la nostalgia and all that. Because, as you know, Danny, the most precious resource that we all have, the most valuable thing that we have, is not French dip.

It's time.

So I would I did not want to spend two and a half or three hours online because that's a lot of precious time and I didn't want to do it.

So we went somewhere else.

But that was that was my day. Yeah, driving, you know, driving through skid row and what a What a zoo, What an absolute zoo that was. And fortunately I did not get lost at the park or in skid Row for that matter, Dandy, I was close, but I didn't do it.

Sounds like maybe they should have had customers get lost trying to find their new location when they relocated years ago. It sounds like they needed to find a different part of LA for their restaurant.

Yeah, well it's the same thing, I'm sure. My favorite deli is this place called Layers, which is right across from MacArthur Park, which is a drug den. MacArthur Park's a if you need If you need fentanyl, you go to MacArthur.

Yeah, I've been there. A bunch of hookers and cocaine.

Yeah yeah.

You go to MacArthur Park for fent and all cocaine, crack, whatever, heroin. They got it all there. It's like a CBS for hard street drugs. But the mayor says it's just kids playing soccer in the park. That place will be closing within the next couple of years. But these places they don't They don't change location, and you could relocate somewhere else.

You don't have to be in skid Row.

You don't have to cross the street from MacArthur Park, but for whatever reason they won't do it, and so they end up going out of business.

You know.

So that's that.

Well, to start this past week, and as you know, I was in Atlanta to broadcast live there at the All Star Village for CNR and filled in for the Dan Patrick Show. You've probably seen these things. I know you went into the NFL experience with me when the Super Bowl was in Los Angeles. Pretty cool, like all those interactive things you can do. They have a lot

You know.

I'm of course drawn to where there was They called it ballpark Bites and they had something off the menu from each major league team, and people were sitting on this fake green grass with a DJ playing music, eating hot dogs and nachos, and there were the garlic fries from the Giants and it was pretty cool. Got a Chicago Cubs hot dog?

Oh yeah?

And then I'm on my way. There was an upstairs. There was a third story where some stuff was going on in this convention center. As I'm walking outside of where the batting cages were, I realized that my phone was feeling a lot lighter. I have one of those magnet wallets. Have you ever seen those?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen those.

Though those are cool, it's never given me a problem. It's got a strong magnet on it. But I realized that when I had my phone out of my pocket, my lanyard that they gave us, it was getting stuck to the magnet. And when I pulled it off earlier in the day, I remember it jarred my wallet loose, and I remember thinking to myself, Man, I gotta be careful because that sucker is gonna pull off. I look down. No magnet wallet to be found nowhere on my phone,

Yeah, So you're trying to I've done this a few times. I used to lose my keys. I lost my wallet in the parking lot at the grocery store one time. So you're trying to What I would always do is try to retrace your steps. Are you trying to probably go back and try to remember where you walked and where you might have lost it? Right, that whole thing exactly.

So I go down to where I was eating because that was the last time I had used my card. Yeah, and there's nothing. I asked the people who served the ballpark dog to me nothing was turned into them. They pointed me to guest services. Nope, nobody's turned in anything. Yet. I am screwed because a couple of days later, I need to fly back to Los Angeles. My idea is

And are you going to keep the magnet wallet though, or are you going to get like an old school pocket wallet?

Are you going to you know.

This thing has been nah, you know, this thing has been pretty trusty. That's the only time that that's happened. And like I said, it was because that stupid thing was getting tangled up with it because it was magnetic. So I guess I just got to be careful. It doesn't, you know, attached to something? Gotcha?

All right? What did the you?

Yes, the Dodgers had the Dodger dog. Was that what they had there at the All Star?

Yeah? They had the Dodger dog.

Yeah.

I wanted to try something different. The Cubby Dog had like this strange, really bright green relish on it. Okay, and it was interesting. I didn't like it as much as I like Dodger dogs when they're grilled, but it was all right though. It was I would say a five out of ten.

Do you remember what the other teams had, like the Red Sox, where did they have? Did they have the Finway frank there their famous hot dog?

Was that what they had?

Yeah? They're famous hot dog, which I already had got to try thanks to your overnight show.

Oh yeah, we used to have a guy a listening. I think what was his name? Phil?

I think I forget this guy was really cool. You send us hot dogs every year for years. A Finway doesn't do it anymore, but we used to get these hot dogs.

It was awesome. Finway and the Monster dogs.

Of course those are more expensive, but you can buy them at the market around Boston. Moving on from that, So there are some nights out when you stumble upon things so ridiculous that you think you're hallucinating.

We've all been there, and that's what happened to me.

This.

I'm gonna share this story. I've not told the story before. I didn't talk about this on the air this week. So the fact is, working the overnight, you have the sleep schedule. It's similar to a raccoon. So on the weekends I get out and try to live a little bit and all that stuff. So I was recently dragged by the wife to something called Bingo Loco in Hollywood. You ever heard of this, Danny Bingo Loco? You ever heard of that?

No? No?

Okay, yeah, So I didn't know what the hell this was. She told me it would be fun. I didn't look it up. I didn't google it or AI it or anything like that. So when your wife says it's going to be fun, you know that's something every married man knows is code for you're going to hate this, but you're going to go anyway, right, don't you know that? Like Danny, when your wife says, hey, this is going to be fun, usually that's you're gonna hate it, but you have to go. And so all right, fine, so,

If you were to mix your.

Sweet grandma's favorite pastime, right, bingo with a techno rave tadda, there you go, it's bingo with glows sticks.

But there's more to it. So imagine.

I don't know if everyone's had this memory, but if your childhood memories of watching your your grandmother play bingo, we're run through some kind of neon filter thing and then broadcast on Instagram like a bachelorette party in Sherman Oaks.

Or something like that, that's Bingo Loco. So it's bingo Grandma.

Meets E D M and Wheel of Fortune, you know, meets some kind of internet social media reaction video. So the premise, it's it's pretty great. It's like an article from years ago. It's like, what if bingo? What if you put bingo and Molly together?

What would happen?

So even to paint the picsion more for the blinds, think about like going into this thing in Hollywood. It's a big venue. It's like a dance hall. There's rave lights, there's a DJ, there's a bar, there's a host. This guy in a pink jersey that says bingo Loco of course, wearing number sixty nine, yelling numbers into a microphone like he's announcing some kind of underground fight club out in Rancho Cucamonger or something like that.

And here I am. I find Danny.

I find my fat ass standing in the middle of this techno hoot nanny. You know. I'm like, it's like, if you don't put a guy that doesn't belong somewhere, like a like if you were to put a dad out in Coachella, you know, some cargo short wearing dad out in Coachella wouldn't belong. And so I'm like, what am I doing here? I really don't belong here. And my wife told me, says, don't work. The prizes are good. You're in for the prize, she said. I said, what

Anyway, so I'm like.

Come on.

So I walk in there and I'm thinking names they were the best prizes.

Yeah, yeah exactly.

So I'm thinking, hey, I'll win, We'll win a nice prize at Bingo. Maybe we win a new TV, a European vacation. That would be a nice prize. Lifetime supply of chicken fingers, that would be pretty cool.

No.

Uh, these people were playing Bingo under Neon and Rave lighting, and they were giving away the weirdest random junk. We are talking about the remnants of like do you ever watched like Storage Wars where they bid on empty abandoned storage sheds.

Yeah, it was like it was like that.

It was like it was the weirdest name and listen, I this is my opinion.

Whatever. It was like the last like the leftover crap from a radio station prize exactly.

They had a very cheap guitar that they were you could win over stuffed pink bear stuffy like a stuffed animal that probably reaked a regret.

They had multiple air fryers, which you.

Know is like that's the adult version of getting socks for Christmas, when you get an air airfryer.

They had.

The highlight for many was the giant I'm not being those up, Danny. The giant neon pink plastic sausage, if you know what I mean, not the kind you serve with pancakes, the naughty one, very phallic.

I don't know, I need to spell it out.

They gave away a sex toy shape like a brought worst that actually happened. So what makes this event even more fascinating is not that it's weird, because there's a lot of things that are weird, right, Weird is not bad. Weird by itself is not bad. What makes it notable is that this place I am pretty sure exists entirely for social media. I don't think anyone was really there

The rave because the rave kind of sucked.

They were there to document being at this bingo local thing.

Like the party wasn't.

What it was about. It was just evidence that it happened. And it turns out that your beloved blowhard not in the target demo, Danny, not in the target demo. That is why the crowd was mostly what do you think the crowd was, I'll tell you mostly middle aged women.

You know, women in middle aged.

Or used to do ecstasy and go to big rapes when they were younger.

Exactly, these are probably women. I don't I'm bad with ages.

It looked like they were thirties, forties, fifties, and they were screaming, they were going crazy. They were dancing around holding up their air fryer like they won an oscar, and.

You know, it was like listen.

Ultimately, you know, that's the night itself was what was important. It's part of the social media illusion, and that's it.

I mean, it was.

You know, Bingo local is not as good as church bingo. Church Bingo has better snacks, they have better prizes. You don't need ear plugs. And the only reason I was there was because my wife wanted me to go and Danny. You know, as a married man, marriage is mostly about showing up and pretending like you're just you're happy to be there, and you're not confused and all that stuff, and.

I had the thousand yard stare, like I realized that this is this is pretty much my life now.

But I did get some good husband points Danny, which, as we know, you can redeem husband points anywhere you go for absolutely nothing. Husband points get you nothing. So if anyone ask you, and I'm sure something, bring this up. When I ran into him at a mallard me greet, I did not experiencially bingo local. I endured it and it was a lot of people with glowed sticks chasing I guess some kind of clout or something like that.

So there you go. That was mad. It's like it's like a market research lab.

Oh, it's it was. It was craziness. I mean, I was like, how did I end up at a Bingo rave?

How did she even hear about something like that from social media?

No, she's not even on social media.

She heard from people at work, like people she I guess friends of hers or people at work. Somebody told her about it, and so next thing you know, she's like, hey, we need to go out and check this thing out. And I should have known early on because the DJ got up there says has anyone been to Bingo Loco before? And nobody, Like there was nobody that said they had been there, because it's one of those things you go one time, you don't go back.

You know, it's like a one and done type situation, because why would you go back. I mean you've experienced so anyway.

It's one and done like a Clippers game.

Why No, like the Lakers in the playoffs, one and done. But I'm bump hey, by the way, another the Lakers want and went to the Clippers. How embarrassing for the Lakers? My god, who want that? They wanted the great Bradley Beal. Nobody wanted Bradley Beal. Everyone wanted twelve team.

Oh God, keep telling yourself that.

The Lakers wanted him. He said, O.

Sons wanted to get rid of him so badly that they're paying the money.

Twelve teams wanted this guy, and he chose the Clippers.

That guy's a loser.

He's a great guy. I can't wait.

He is a cancer redemption story. Baby.

We'll get out on that. Anything you want to promote, Danny, it's Saturday. What are you go going on? You want to say anything? You just say goodbye.

Just Orange County this weekend came down for speaking of doing something to help the WiFi. Her ninety four year old grandmother from Long Beach was recently put into a retirement home here, so we are here this weekend to check on her and make sure she's settled in nice.

Right, we'll take care of her. Have a wonderful day today.

We've got the mail bag and also, Danny, the official pregame show for the twenty twenty five Mallard Palooza will be on the Sunday. That's the pregame show for the boys that are pregaming. There'll be a lot of tailgating people listening to that. Walt tailgating outside the Malar Palooza.

Danny it's gonna be big.

Nice. Throw a Dodger dog on the grill for me, all right. We'll talk to you then see you tomorrow Later skater my flation