Kabooms.
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 clearinghouse of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the air.
Eywey, Welcome to another sparkling edition of The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler and Danny G. The thirteenth day of the month of January. But more importantly, Danny, for our purposes, we have football action on wild Card weekend. It begins later today, double barrel action. Are you do you have a proper cushion to sit on, Danny G to watch the two games later today?
Well, first, I think we should start with the major news, fourth big announcement of the week. Okay, first we had Pat Carroll, then Nick Saban, then of course Bill Belichick, and I hear that Ben Mallor is going to be retiring from radio.
Yes, yes, I'm retiring doing TV now, Danny, I have much too important to do radio so I that is a fair point. I have decided that this is my last podcast. We won't even do the Sunday podcast. This is it, this is all I'm doing. I'm retiring. I just need to spend more time with my family. That's all I need to do. Danny, that's what a week.
Huh Yeah, crazy week.
And I feel like when you and I get to that age, though, our only option is going to be like a Walmart greeter.
Yeah, yeah, we're not at the financial status of Nick Saban. Although I am a conspiracy theory guy, Danny, I am one that believes that, hey, wait a minute here, there's more to the story. We're not getting the whole story. Like I'm kind of that guy. I think we're getting a version of what happened. But there's a lot of stuff that's being left on the cutting room floor that's
on the same thing. And really the Belichick thing too, because and I mentioned this in a monologue this week where I was talking about Belichick and it was like I was like in a show me state of mind. I was like, all right, let's see this actually play out. And the fact that they waited until Thursday, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It tells you that there was some consternation with the Patriots and that this line that they were using that
it was a mutual decision. It's it's never people break up. I look at this like breakups.
You know.
It's someone has to be the first person to say, all right, it's over, we're done. You know what I mean, Dan, It's it's not like you don't exactly the same time. Maybe it happened a handful of times, but at the exact same time. Come on, that's bullshit.
One person is drinking to ease the pain. The other person is drinking to have fun.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So you know, the mutual. When I hear a mutual decision, I say bullshit, that's what That's what I say in my head. And uh, and that's just the reality of the situation the way I see it. So you know, take that for what it's worth now. Uh. With that being said, great week for talk radio. I was texting some of my radio friends that I have a little network, and we were talking about how we
need to really relish this, really enjoy this. When we are breaking down mock drafts and who's going to be selected in the sixth round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You know, it's like that. That's that's where we have to we have to enjoy days like that. We had this week and it was great, and I want to thank the NFL because what they've done is it's no longer black Monday Racist. It's an entire week of festivities because you had on Monday, well, Sunday night it started
Arthur Blank was fired Arthur Smith. Rather Arthur Blank fired Arthur Smith. Who Sunday night. Then Monday you had Ron Rivera. Tuesday was Mike Rabel, Wednesday was Pete Carroll, Thursday was Bill Belichick and also Wednesday you had Nick Savor. That's great and I have proposed that the NFL what they should do. I mentioned this on the Overnight Show, but maybe.
You hear it.
What the NFL should do is when coaches start getting hired, they should have each day dedicated to a different team, like the Raiders get Tuesday, and after that, you know, the Falcons can hire their coach on a Wednesday, and the Patriots they can go on a Thursday. And just like boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, just like that, because for guys like us, Dandy, that would be great, right, that we'd be able to bite into everything we wonder.
Yeah, whenever you have a fresh headline every day for every show, it's awesome.
No, it's a wonderful thing. And today, you know who knows this, we got football, so actual games, so I guess we don't have to worry. But as far as this podcast, we've got to bucko Bruce, Religious Revival, back to school, the term of the week, not to be confused with the word of the week or the stuff that we did on yesterday's podcast. And we'll see what else we have time for. But I want to start
with this. So the other day I got a text message from a member of the Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association. And if you've heard the podcast and the radio show over the years, you know that when you're part of the FSR Alumni Association, you're awesome, right, You're fantastic, You're wonderful. All that a very special group of people who worked at Fox Sports Radio. And there's a lot of people who have worked at Fox Sports RADO over the years. So this guy reaches out to me and he's like, hey,
I want to have you come on my podcast. And you know, I don't know. I try to help out people when I can.
Gaston has his own podcast. Now who I.
Don't I don't know who that who's at? Well say what yeah, I think he's running LA into the ground. Gascott isn't he the district attorney anyway? So so I said, okay, I'll do it. So the guy is TJ Reeves. If you've listened to Fox Sports Radio a lot over the years, you know who.
TV buccaneers sideline reporter.
The Buck's Sideline guy exactly, Buck Obruce And so he does a couple of different podcasts and TJ wanted me to come out, so we chatted. It was supposed to be about thirty minutes. I think we did almost an hour. I think it seemed like it was an hour, and we were just catching up, telling stories about the Z dog an e Z, one of the bosses at Fox in the early days, and breaking everything down and tossing
it up, putting some Cayenne pepper on it. And it was a really fun conversation because it was kind of about radio and the evolution of the business and how it's changed because me and TJ we're around the same age. Danny, You're kind of in the same group as us, and so just talking about the way it was in radio when we got into it and how it has evolved over the years and it's a much different animal now than it was. And I actually sent out a link
to that if you want to hear that podcast. But you should listen to all these podcasts before you listen to that, Like that should be like the last thing that you listen to. Like that's like if you're on a long road trip you're moving man, Matt and you're going around the country, that's what you listen to after you've listened to all the archive of this podcast.
But it was fun.
It was fun to catch up with TJ. And it made me feel old because when TJ worked at Fox Sports Radio, he was a doting father bragging about his little girls and all that. And then then of course now he gave me an update and they're almost out of high school. So it's a boom just happened really fast, like really fast.
Yeah, yeah, it goes so fast. Cole is already riding a big wheel.
Yeah, Cole actually went out to the bar and had a beer with you the other day, right, beer nuts at the bar talking about girls. So that was fun with Brocco Bruce. So this was a wild day. So this is the same day. I had a lot going on. I had a lot going on this day. So I did the conversation with TJ Reeves on his podcast. So then I had a conference call with NBC about the TV show because we're still doing it and it's on this week, is on, it was on yesterday, and he's
even on today. It's gonna be awkward because it'll be broadcast even after the first couple of playoff games. Normally, in the past there's a kill switch on Benny Versus the Penny. Once the games kick off on Sunday, that's it. They don't air the show anymore because it's not evergreen,
it's dated. But because of the playoffs, they made a decision to continue to broadcast it, and they actually released the show on Thursday this week, and it was It was kind of cool because normally just airs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning, but now it was on Thursday in some markets, and so that's that was gonna go anyway. The whole point of this is that I did the TJ. Reeves podcast. I then had a conference call, but I
had about thirty minutes in between. I had about thirty minutes in between, and I had a decision do I just sit there and kind of twiddle my thumbs, which is nothing wrong with that. I could have played Solitaire on my phone and would have loved that. I love playing solitaire. Could have done that, and then I could have just like stared at a wall. Or I decided, you know what, why did I go on Marcel in Brooklyn's YouTube show? This is shame?
What mean?
Yeah? So so Marcel from the Projects there in Brooklyn has a YouTube show, like a Facebook YouTube show, and he had sent me a a stream yard. Is that what it is? Streamyard? I think it's what it's called. He sent me a link and he's like, hey, you know when I have you on? And I was like, okay, whatever you know, and I was like, ah, thirty five thousand bucks, I'll come on. That's my appearance fee, that's
what it cost to get me. But for some reason, I was like, you know what, why don't I just I'll do it for like a few minutes, I'll go on there for a few minutes and I'll I'll just say hello to him and see what's going on. I think it'd be funny. And so I log in to this this link, and all of a sudden boom, I'm on his show, which I think friends and family watch and one of those deals. And I gotta tell you,
I'm so happy I did it. The smile, the joy that Marcel had on his face was unbelievable for him. This was like an amazing thing. And I mean just getting that reaction, I mean, who the hell am I doing? Overnight show? You know who the f am I and.
You are his old Trump?
Well, yeah, I mean it felt like that. I was like, I was like the Beatles, I was. I was like, you know, Taylor Swift going out on stage, the way that he reacted with pure joy in his heart and a cheshire cat smile, and he was giddy, and it was just wonderful. I just enjoyed the hell out of it, and it was great. It made me feel good. Then congratulations made me feel like I did a good thing. And then immediately after that, Danny, this is this is
you know, no good deed goes on punished. So immediately after that, me and Marcella talking and he says, let's do a prayer. He then it turns into a religious revival. He now not knowing does he not do the prayer. He plays a some minister that he found on the internet doing the daily prayer. No, I'm not against the way, was it, Kurt Warner? Yeah, thank you Jesus, Jesus. So I'm not against any of that. I give sermons every night on the radio. I do four sermons a night.
The mall monologues a sermon. But I was not expected. I was blindsided. Danny like, I'm thinking, I'll just go on there for five minutes. I'll bust marselves balls a little bit, we'll talk some sports, I'll get out. Next thing I know, I'm sitting in the tabernacle. It's just like, what are we doing? Was unreal? So then after that, I was like, I didn't know what to do, because you can't. I was going to hang up, but I was like, you can't hang up in a prayer. The
guy's doing a prayer. Can't hang up here.
Transition.
I had to wait till the prayer was over. I just kind of sat there bemused. I was like, what is going on? And then once the prayer ended, Danny I was like, okay, now I'm out. Now I'm going to make the quick I'm going to make the Irish goodbye. And I did actually have to go. I could have gone like fifteen minutes later, but I was like, no, after that, I'm good.
I like when we were little kids you could finally loosen your tie or take off the clip on bow tie, and then your mom took you for the Sunday special at Burger King.
Oh yeah, yeah. The best part of you know, for me temple, for you church, the best part was when it was over right and you're like, all right, I'm good, I survived another week.
Oh.
During the song in the prayer, me and my older brother would try to not make each other laugh because my mom would give us the evil side eye and say.
You're not getting burger King after this.
If you keep laughing, the more you try not to laugh, the more you laugh.
Oh yeah, for sure. And now these days, as an adult, Danny, if somebody said, hey, you're not gonna get your burger King, you'd probably be Okay, I'm good. I don't need the burger king. I'm all right, I've moved on. I don't need the whopper, I'm fine and all that. But yeah, I remember we were kids and we would be dragged. Usually Friday night there was a service and we'd go there and we knew we realized at some point like if we kind of futched around at the beginning, our
mom would let us go outside and just play. And so we kind of went that direction as often as we could. But it's a it's a back to school kind of experience Danny's word. It's kind of a back to school thing, you know.
Yeah, this past Tuesday, school started back up for my school district, so I had to set my alarm clock for five point fifty am. You know, getting up for me is not that difficult because in radio we work a lot of weird hours. The time isn't what gets me. It's the weather right now. What thirty eight degrees for us is icy. It's hard in the thirty eight degree weather for a southern California kid. Damn, I put two layers of clothes on. I never do that because.
I run hot greaty to bring the gas still.
Dark outside, I pull up to the school, I open up the campus. I get into my classroom and usually I'm in there for about ten minutes setting things up before the first students start arriving. But the weirdest thing ben is the first day back to school. I'm wondering what mood the kids are going to be in. They had a long winter break. Are they going to be
in a good mood? Are they going to be tired and grouchy because they've been, you know, staying up until two am every day and sleeping in until noon like a lot of middle school kids do during their breaks. I'm waiting, I'm waiting. I look up at the clock. It's now seven twenty. No kids, it's now seven point thirty. Not one student?
OK.
I looked.
I double checked the school calendar. I'm like, am I here a day before school opens back up?
That would have been embarrassing. That would have been bad. Yeah, you know.
Yeah.
The first student did not arrive to my classroom until seven forty five am. That's only fifteen minutes before kids start running around finding their home room. It was amazing, and I think besides it being the first day back, the cold weather must have made everybody run late and stay inside their warm house and their warm bed for longer than they should have. There's no other explanation. I've
never had. The first student arrived that late. I wound up signing out three kids at eight fifteen am, three students the whole morning.
Yeah, as far as the cold weather stuff, it did feel like this week, you know, California cold, which is a different kind of cold. But I am proud to say that the listener I talked about this, I think last week on the podcast. Our friend Chris from North Carolina was out here and he's from Wisconsin, and he was complaining about how cold it was outside the FSR studios. Of course we let him sit outside for about forty minutes, but he was complaining about that. But yeah, it's our
version of Siberia. And unlike you, Danny, because you're actually kind of an an adult. You're a father now, so you're an adult. You're a grown up, and you know that you should wear an extra coat. But I'm like, no, I'm not. You know, I still think of myself as a job of the hut, where I never needed to wear extra clothing at all, And so when I go out, even on the cold weather, when it gets you know, the night we work it over and I work over night,
and so we're there. I'm getting out driving around, going to my car, and it's in the thirties. It's in the thirties, which is cold. That's cold anywhere. Thirties is in the cold range. And it's funny at the TV show. We get there and there's still a polar vortex going on. It's cold and chili and all that stuff, and I'm like, I'm not gonna wear an extra jacket, so I just like walk in my clothes short sleeves, you know, sometimes shorts.
And by the time I get from the parking lot, the Abbott and Costello parking garage, to to the to the NBC whatever news bureau there and I walk in, I'm as cold as a frosted frog. I am. I mean, it's like it's I've got like, you know that mucus that kind of freezes on your nose because your nose runs because it's so cold. Like, dude, It's like, what is this?
The people who brag about being in the coldest places on our planet are interesting because, in fact, this came up on the Covino and Rich Show last week. One of the topics was weird flexes. Things people brag about, but it's kind of a strange brag. Sometimes people are like minus ten right now, and somebody tries to one up them, like, no, no, I'm up here in Canada
and it's minus twenty degrees. I know this has happened on your show before, where you mentioned the weather or something like that, and then you get a hundred messages of people telling you what their weather is.
Oh yeah, for sure. Well there's two things that happen, and this is universal as long as I've been in radio. If you say the weather, you get hundreds of people that will say it's either hotter where they are or colder where they are. And you say the price of gas.
Oh that's another good one.
Yeah, the price. I'll say I can't believe how expensive gas is in California. I will then get a parade of people saying, well, I live in Texas and I paid three dollars less a gallon than you pay it. It's like it's that kind of thing. It's usually not people saying it's more expensive, because it's hard to get more expensive than the crappy California gas prices. It's usually people saying, hey, yeah, so much cheaper.
And yeah they're bragging about how much cheaper their gas is.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Like you loser, my gas is three point fifty nine. Meanwhile, you and I are pumping six dollars and fifty cent gas.
Yeah, and we think we get a deal because it was six dollars and sixty five cents the day before at Costco. So we were like, we're saving fifteen cents a gallon, and like we're in really good shape. We're in really good shape with that term of the week. Are you ready for the term of the week, the term of the week, Yeah, big bit, big bit. On the show all I love words and I like to
change up my lexicon. I was having a conversation with Looney Tunes this week about how the sports media, just media in general could be so much better if everyone just worked on improving their their lexicon, just improving the different versions of words we say. And I'm not perfect. I screw up a lot of words. In fact, I get more emails from listeners, hey you mispronounced that word. You know you screwed that word up. And of course
in my head, I never make any mistakes. There's no weak spots at all, And everything I say is the King's English. And people will point out, no, you screwed up, that was a mistake, blah blah blah. You know.
Oh, and the great Rick D's taught you years ago to make those mistakes on purpose so that you know which listeners are paying attention.
Exactly one of the greatest pieces of advice I've ever gotten. I love that to death. Rick D's radio legend, the biggest DJ in LA for Top forty radio when I was a kid and had a TV show, came up with the number one song and all that, and yeah, he came under. He used to record the first hour of a show on Kiss FM, and and he would say, yeah, just make make a mistake, leave it in there. People hear mistakes and they love to correct you. But they also they would assume that it's a live show. They
would assume it's a live show. So the term of the week, which is I end of a word of a week, but I think of it as a term. It's something that I've used quite a bit called hum dinger um dinger That is a hum dinger of a.
Story that's not sure you can say that word on the podcast.
Yeah, I'm gonn get in trouble. They're gonna get bleeped. Are we gonna gonna be outlawed?
Black List are talking about dingers again?
I know, I know, I know. My right hand was getting a workout. So there's a couple of bogus stories. But I love the bogus stories on the origin of this word. And these have gone around the Internet for years, and one of them comes back somebody that was allegedly named Arnold Humdinger. And the legend, the internet legend, is have you heard this? By the way, Danny, this is a lot.
I feel like you're making this up.
No, no, no, the Internet made it up. I just I've seen it over the years, and at one point, at one point in my life, I actually thought this was actually true. I thought this was true.
So the story goes long ago, in the eighteen hundreds, there was a guy named Arnold Humdinger who tried to land his biplane on the summit of Mount.
Everest, very difficult to do, right, and since he attempted to do that, anything that was outrageous and over the top has been called a hum Dinger. In honor of good old Arnold humdinger. Unfortunately that is not true. That is horse junk or bullshoy or whatever you want to say. So the real story, the word humdinger is an American word, so we can pat ourselves in the back. And the original origin is not completely known, but it was first used in the United States in the early nineteen hundreds.
It believes to date back to the late eighteen hundreds. The theory behind it is, in those days in American English, the term dinger was a slang term that if they had Urban Dictionary back in like eighteen eighty seven, you know, dinger would have been in there. Danny, that's a kid's term. Those kiddos used dinger back in the late eighteen hundreds, and at that time it meant anything that was just over the top superlative would be a dinger, and that's
just what it meant. And so they added hum to that, and then they got hum dinger as an added bonus, and then the word dinger is not used very much today. There's only one thing I know of they used the word dinger for, and I think we both know what that is. Right, when you think of a dinger, what do you think do you think of baseball, right a dinger? Yeah, yeah, tany hitting a dinger. But that's it. They don't it doesn't have you used the word dinger for any other reason.
Ding.
I know Tim Conway, our buddy over at KFI and LA it does the Afternoon Drive show. Conway uses ding dong. I don't think he uses dinger though, because he used I don't think he uses dinger.
I don't think so.
Yeah, I don't think that's that's part of his his lexing anyway. The term of the week hum dinger, and I do use that one. That's one I used, Danny. I liked that's a fun word to say. People kind of smile when they hear the word hum dinger. They like it. They like it. Now, how are you celebrating Danny? National rubber ducky Day? Today is National rubber ducky Day. Are you doing anything special to celebrate National rubber ducky Day?
Rubber ducky. I'm going to give Coha a bath.
And I think the only ducky has those of stuffed animals, so that might be kind of soggy.
Yeah, that would be difficult. You gotta get him a rubber ducky, you know, I'll buy him one. I'm gonna get him a rubber ducky. I'm gonna get I want cold when he takes a bath. To have a rubber ducky, you gotta have a rubber ducky. Man, we gotta get a Now, how about a big rubber ducky, like a jumbo sized rubber ducky that's like next level rubber ducky on steroids.
Now, that would help get him in the bathtub, because, as I told the story on last weekend's podcast, Parent Fail, Double Fail, him getting a cold and getting almost a near eye infection with that soap in his eye from the bath and ever since then, he doesn't want to go near the bathtub.
Yeah, yeah, yes, And it's a it's survival of the Fittest Danny right when you learn it's National sticker Day today, so celebrate that. Oh here's one that relates to our world, Danny. It's National Public Radio Broadcasting Day.
Oh our future.
Yeah yeah, public. I have a buddy of mine in the early days of LA Sports radio, this guy named A Martinez, you know, a good dude. I love a But he went into public radio, public broadcasting, and he's made a lot of money. He still does it as far as I know. It's like the West Coast Bureau guy for public radio.
And yeah, he left the ESPN LA radio station to do public radio.
Yeah, we worked together back then, so I don't want to say when. It was a long, long time ago, but we were young punks and he went to public radio. And I still to this day like the bust balls of people that listen to public radio and they think they're better than everyone else. Right, you listen to public radio, like, hey, you know, I read what are the Things West of the four or five?
An?
I read The New York Times, and I listened to public radio. Now, I guess it's a certain podcast that you listen to. I'm not sure their names. Anyway, we'll get out on that. We got football tonight. TV show is on Benny Versus the Penny. Check that out. We'd love to have you watch. That would be awesome. What do you have going on your world, Danny today? I know we'll be back on the Sunday Pod having fun there.
Yeah for Saturday today, gonna watch some football. I'm hyped up for Super wild Card weekend, man, not just wild Card weekend. And then after that actually gonna go on a little date night. I should say, I should say date evening because cod can only be out until about seven pm.
Yeah.
Well, and and when you get older, you'll only be able to be out.
Till seven in about five years.
Who you got today? I got on the TV show. I picked the Texans and I picked the Chiefs tonight.
Those are my.
Oh, those are the same two I picked on Covino and Rich for Saturday.
All right, well, hopefully you go to and oh, because then I will go to and Oh we'll both be.
To and Oh. Yeah, let's go c J. Stroud.
Yeah, I'm a love CJ. Stroud. It's a great story. All right, have a wonderful rest of your Saturday. And we got the mailback. We'll have the mailback for you tomorrow.
Have a great day whatever you do later, Skaterva fulacious