Yellow Submarine

We are in the air everywhere the vast power of the I Heart Media family, the glob will reach of the podcast network here with I Heart and we are at it again the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller our new slogan eight days a week because also four hours not enough, as we like to say in the Overnight Show during the weekend. If you're finding this, you're saying,

what the hell is this crap? This is a spit in off of the Overnight Show for Fox Sports Radio, the Ben Maller Show, which is broadcast live on hundreds of radio stations like WOR over four hundred radio stations and a bunch of other international platforms. Uh Sunday. For me, it's Sunday through Thursday, but for most people it's Monday through Friday from two am til six am Eastern Standard time. So that's this And this show originally started as a

football handicapping podcast. It has morphed into something else. It is the pathogens have shifted, uh, and it's it's something. I'm not sure what we're doing here, but it's not a football handicapping podcast. There's no football to handicap. And it was only gonna be one day a week when we started. Now it's three days a week. We keep this up, we will be doing it twelve days a week. But we are joined, as always, for better or worse, by the man affectionately known as gag On David Gascon.

You know, it's a it's a new week forget brand new episodes. It's a but it's a crazy dynamic that we have, or you have in particular with your your fans and followers. Because I before we get into any of this, I must apologize for my lack of of spunk and life last week. Um, but it's crazy because we had Now are you are you willing to know?

Not yet? Not yet? You're not ready to go into detail on that okay, because there was something that happened, and I just want you to know know I'm a good teammate. I didn't say anything. I kept my mouth shut and I'll continue to keep my mouth shut. But something happened, a dramatic life event for David Gascon, and I didn't mention and he didn't mention it. And it's very uncomfortable me not to do it, but I am. I'm continuing to honor your wishes. You you you holsted your side arm.

I appreciate that. But it's crazy because the dynamic that you have with your ends and followers is crazy. Because we had I had some female fans or followers of yours that reached out and said, hey, I hope you're doing well. You send a different lack the energy, lacked the life, and then you had the mail that said you're fucking terrible, you suck, You're horrible. What the fucke loony on here? Instead it was bipolar. But three three

things I can I can sit you right now. One is UM, I will never ever hack your Twitter account like Jannasontenna Coople. I know you covered that earlier in the week during your show, UM. And to UM, I will never ever ever allow your wife to locate you via snapchat if you're if you're at your brother's and be doing any kind of extracurricular activity. So of course, of course, of course. Uh. And just to address in the mouth imlsia from the female perspective of the male perspective,

and it is a much different perspective. The women look at things differently than the men, that's obvious. Um. As far as the dudes, I like the comments I got instead of gag on it's lifeless gone. Uh, that was one of them. They were comparing you to a dead fish with your contribution, which is odd because this is not the first time this has happened. All right, I remember we did the Sports Talk Verry interview and you set that one out. Use I'm on the bench out

of that one. Listen, we live here in southern California, and you can agree with me on this because you did get married on the island. Um, when someone's riding a wave, you don't want to get in front of it, you don't want to ride along with it. And because I did my best to to not derail um, which was a great podcast, and you would have just been

bland and unimaginative if you had added to that. But so, and you're promising gascon here not to be boring, right, this is not You're gonna and we're not gonna be welcomed to Dolesville here with you on this this weekend of podcast. But we we did. Typically when we when we post the podcast, we always ask either at the end of the podcast or whether it's in print for the Apple iTunes, to rate, review, subscribe the whole nine yards.

And and we did get some colorful reviews that came in last week and that said, congratulations Ben, you are now Fox News. Oh yeah, yeah, I did, like yeah, I like that, you know, and and and and on que I think I even said this on the podcast. I got an email to my my other email address and they were like, hey, you know, I was a big fan I've listened to a few years. I can't, you know, you just I don't. I don't agree with what you said, so I can't. I can't. And you

you went the third rail. You know, this is which I the great thing is that you know it's a self fulfilling prophecy because I said, this is what's gonna happen, and that's exactly. I got not a lot, but there were a few people to reach time. Now there were other people, and we'll get to the email back later in the weekend. The people actually did like what we we said, and they were open to it, and they were like, hey, whatever, no matter of your opinion, which

was refreshing. But there were the people that the snowflake crowd that's easily triggered by this stuff. And if you don't agree with everything, if you don't drink the same cool aid they drink, they're done. Um. And you know that's just I don't. I don't live my life that way. I know a lot of people do. And I have friends that are I totally disagree with who are politically, but I get along with him. I don't care. Now,

Yeah I did. I did show with Looney for years, and I could not be more far further away from Looney politically, uh you know, the limousine liberal Tom Looney. But I you know, I get all. I was a friend, I I I you know, we fight all the time about stuff, but politically and sports wise, and then at the end we hug it out. We're good. Yeah. Now we since we're producing this um. The second week or

be the first week of May. Um, I I do have a special request that I have to make and it's uh, it's something that you chat about last week with with our friend Fats in Philadelphia. I love Fats. Fats is one of my favorite don't This guy just started listening to a short while ago, and I'm I'm a big fan of Fats. Now I think we might have to invite him on for the week of May twenty one. I'm not going to tell you now why, but it is related to what he has done and

in the whole Philadelphia thing. Um, okay, I listen. I'm I'm open to having Fats on the podcast. I guess he's on guest Jon's team. Apparently no. No, But unlike Chris and Houston, who you do not like the fact that you have a listener torch himself with him all you went straight torching on social media? That was that is. Yeah. I've had some weird things. I mean, for some reason, people are attracted me that do wild things, like the most famous one had been Doc Mike that sent the

bloody goat heads from Chicago multiple times. But this is it's in the top five. Lighting yourself on fire and shouting my name during the NFL Draft is one of the most unique things that I cannot encourage people to do, and I don't know that anyone would want to do it, but I mean, Fats facts will be on the podcast as long as the people with the white coach don't come knocking on his door first, whether that's the CDC or the FBI. That dude had a Molotov cocktail and

he undressed himself with it. It was it was, yeah, yeah, it was. And he didn't even make it to the Eagles pick, which was my favorite part. Like normally you'd say, Okay, the Eagles made a terrible pick, I'm gonna light myself on fire. That would be like a classical Philadelphia thing to do, that's timeless for the Philadelphia sports fan. But no, no, not this guy. Fats in Philly's light. I can't even make it. The Traps dragon onto long. I was gonna

light myself on fire right now. I'm a human dynamo, is what I am. Man Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show week days at two a Eastern paciffect on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app so coming up on today's party. It's just area with a couple of things that we've got. It's a cameo and Operation Odessa. We're gonna get to that as well. It's that's right. Another Mallard film review tonight, Thank the Pandemic. Another Mallard film review with Gascon as well.

I gave him a homework assignment, so we'll have that in a minute. But just briefly, it's a cameo. Now. We had teased this a couple of weeks ago. It is now reality. My friends Sports with Coleman, beloved Baltimore radio personality Morning Man in Baltimore. One of my radio friends. Have a couple of radio friends that do local radio at the other places that are in my like chain of chatting, text messaging, and one Sports with Coleman's in that group. And so he said, Hey, I got an idea.

Why don't you sign up for this thing? Can you? I said, what the fuck is cameo? And don't bother me? What are you? What are you doing? Um? And then I looked at it, and I considered it, and we talked about on the air, and I made the plunge. I made the polar plunge. Like our friends in Minnesota, I jumped into the Frozen Lake and I have joined up with Cameo and it's pretty cool. Now. If you're not familiar what this is, you didn't listen to a

previous podcast. It is a platform design for the shout out. Now. I have said for many, many years, I do not do shout outs. I'm not a morning zoo show, and that is true. We are not a morning zoo show, and we usually give out like brief shoutouts on the radio occasionally, um, but that is what this platform is for. And so I joined up about a week ago and

I've been playing around with it. Now, keep in mind, I didn't mention this on social media, all right, that's number one or radio or this podcast, other than I was considering it. But at that time I had not signed up. And here's the second point here, which is the great thing about this show and the p but that love this show and uh in all that, which is amazing, and I don't deserve this. So I signed up for it. I'm thinking, well, who nobody knows who

the funk I am. I'll just stay on here and maybe I'll eventually get around to announcing that I'm on this platform, and once I clicked the live button to let people know that I was on already, a couple of super fans of the show have popped my cameo cherry and they have clicked on the button. I've only done a couple of these things, and it's a video

platform greeting thing. There's a lot of real celebrities I'm not a real celebrity that are on there, and uh so, it's it's really cool if you're a big fan of the show. And the way I was told by the person from cameo who used to play by the Way for the Patriots. How about that the guy that's uh that that was my rep for this company through Coleman is a former New England Patriot and was on one of the Super Bowl winning teams, which I thought was kind of neat. Um. I don't know if he wants

me to give his name out or not. I don't know that we need to give his name out, but anyway, so, uh so, this guy was giving the whole rap. He's like, hey, listen, you know, if you're big fans, you know they have like a birthday coming up or a wedding and bar mitzvah you know whatever, or you want to settle a bet, you know, if you want me to rant like a lunatic or something like that. Uh, this is what this is for. And I was like, okay, I mean fine.

You know it's because it's one of those things you don't have to do it. Nobody has to do it, and nobody does it. It doesn't matter, it doesn't affect me at all. People want to do it, I'll do it. And it does cost a couple of bucks. It's not free, so I will tell you that. But it's a personalized greeting. And from what understand, you can set it either you can let it be public and let other people see it, or you can just keep it private. And uh, I was, I was pretty fired up, man. I had the first

two I had. Um was a woman whose husband was a big fan of the show and and it was his his birthday. You know, it sucks because of what's going on with the pandemics. It's hopefully getting kept to an end here soon. People couldn't go out and and you know obviously can't go out and socialized. I just had my birthday while I go so I gave a a shout out to him. And then also there was a kid that I had a birthday and we we said a load of him, which was which was cool. Man.

That was that? That Really that one was neat because this kid's like eleven years old, and I flashed back to when I was eleven and I used to stay up late at night and listen to the radio. And so that was that was pretty neat. So anyway, let'sten. If you want to know, I'll tweet it out at some point. I'll put it on Facebook and all the social media platforms. If you're not interested in looking that up, but it's on the cameo dot com website if you

just search my name. Uh there you can check it out. And uh, you know, like for I'm pretty open to doing anything other than like wearing a you know, Angry Bill cap and one of those things like I'm shopping in San Diego and but uh, like you know, if you want to see Bella, for example, like Angry Bill might sign up and say, hey, send a video with Bella. I would hold Bella against her will and force her to do the video. So I'm mostly flexib Now, gascon are you gonna sign up for this, guesscan if I

can hook you up, are you gonna sign up? So the you claim to have many fans are very narcissistic here, and I would think that you would want to be part of this, to get in on that and and give back to the listen. Yeah, I'd be down to do something like that. It's just um, you know, for as bad as has been, it is just a beautiful thing to see you evolve. Oh, here we go again. Is this is guess CON's humble brag shelf deprecation? This is it right now? Egotistical? There he goes, We're off

to the races. It took a while, let me check at fourteen minutes, about fourteen minutes into the podcast, and then all of a sudden, kinda we're off to the races. You know. I don't know if it's Cowboy and windsor Doc Mike, whoever it is, but the oldest listeners on your show to the youngest, like they're experiencing, even though we're going through this big quarantine, they're experiencing the evolution

of of Ben Mallory like they're there. I mean, it's it's a reboot like this is like Ben Mallory rebooted. So you go just terrestrial radio to digital, to camera to broadcasting like you are now full fledged professional broadcast. Oh my god, I've you've popped my cherry guess pop by chair. But you you're such a show. You were on you were on YouTube back in the day. You know, we have some of the videos from when you were

on with NBC. And you're flying back and forth the East coast to West coast like once a month to the beautiful Stanford, Connecticut area. There the home of professional wrestling, you know, the headquarters of the w W. I walked by their building are in Stanford, Connecticut, and I have eaten at Bobby V's restaurant in Stanford, Connecticut. Hout that. See so you have? I mean you traveled near and far, and now you're going straight to digital, straight to uh television,

and now you're going onto the social media apps. This is wonderful on YouTube nodding your monologues for Fox Sports Radio. That was a brilliant idea. Who ever crafted that idea. You are shameless. No, you are the shameless schmuck is your new nickname, the shameless schmuck. No, I'm encouraged by the West of the four oh five shameless suck, the narcissist, pretentious, spoiled brat. I have such a conceited person. I have said nothing of myself this entire time. I'm just encouraged

by what you're doing. I know you're just encouraged. And you just have this little smirk to your voice while you talk, because you have this smirk that makes me want to punch you as you talk. You know, because sometimes when you're not around, I'll have a I have a careful conversation with your wife and she'll say, sometimes he just needs to be pushed in that uncomfortable situation, and I'm like, I agree with you. Miss is one hundred. Yet again, this is this is gonna the conspiracy theorists

will be out again. Unsolicited guest gun works in Miller's wife yet again into another podcast. This is seven eighty five, that seven time this has happened. Well, you know, because it's a team effort. It's it's not this is not golf, this is not tennis. This is a collaboration of sorts. You are not a rose. You're like a cactus, and you live for a great period of time but you need a little bit of water every so often. This

is great, Okay, done question for you. Yes, um, I know you mentioned your dog, but are you gonna have you gotta be running out of hats eventually, right, Yeah, I don't. I've gone through a lot. I didn't realize that My goal was I'm the mad Hatter of sports chatters nicknames. So I thought, well, they're making me do these dopey videos for YouTube, so I might as well. And a lot of people, like thousands of people the

Dak Prescott thing. We were like fifteen thousand views, around fifteen thousand used on just one video alone, that's like five minutes or whatever. So it's there's a lot of people seeing these things. And that's just on one of the platforms, not you know, they're on all the social media players. So my goal was to wear a new hat every day. But yeah, I had the this week. I've worned the Bill Miller barbecue hat listeners sent me

from Texas. I had that on the other night. And what else have I I've gone through some of my minor league baseball hats. I have not yet warned the Bakersfield Blaze hat. I will wear that that's on my list. You did the odd couple one. I did the odd couple. Shout out to the odd couple. Our friends Rob Parker and Christmas sort I had that going on. I have a Tony Bruno hat that Tony gave me. I'm going

through some old hats. Here's one. You probably don't even know who this is, but longtime listeners of Fox Sports Radio might remember Mark Patrick, big big radio star in Indianapolis who did our morning show. And uh, Mark, and I don't know if you know no that story, but it was pretty cool because when I was doing the overnight show and and he was doing the morning show and we are, paths would cross, although he was doing

it from a different location. Um, but he had a kid that was a pretty good high school baseball player and he would send me, Um, we have correspondence, you know about the kid and all that stuff. And uh, in in Indiana, in the Innnianapolis area and uh and this goes back, Man, what are we talking here? We're probably talking the likeve something like that, maybe right around then.

So this is like fifteen years ago. And uh, and you know he's like, hey, my kids got a you know, he got drafted by the you know, the the Yankees, and uh, you know, I don't know, you know, he might go to college or he ended going to college and he made the major leagues and he's he had an eight year career. The guy named Drew Storing. I don't if you remember Drew Orange played for the Washington Nationals. Yeah. Yeah, he was the closer for the Nationals. He he had

a forty save season in the big leagues. And for the first couple of years of his career he was brilliant. And then I don't know what happened. I mean, he's you know, the clock hits hit zero and all hell happens. But um, yeah, I met him. Cool. It was when when the Nationals came in and uh with the against the Dodgers obviously, and I was like, hey, I know you're old man, and uh and uh, it was pretty It was pretty cool. So I'm off to where the Mark Patrick had my homage to Mark Patrick on sports.

You're in the big chair is what he used to say. That was one of his trademark catchphrases. You're in the big chair now. Just because you're running out of hats for right now doesn't mean you can't shy away from from rocking the beanie. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. The Beanie. Yeah, you can rock some beanies. That is that what this was all about. But do rag also, what would you like me to wear? We

pull that off, but culturally inappropriate? No, but I just I mean, your head is huge. Yeah, I can wear like a bandana on my head. Maybe I'll do that, right, could do that? I get the banda old school like you could be either old school Kelly Rudy or old school Jim McMahon. Oh, Kelly Rudy is a good one.

I like that. I think Kelly Rudy is. When I think of Kelly Rudy, I think of him taking his helmet off to get a gatorade shot or water shot and then you see you know the yeah yeah, um, but yeah, I think a beanie would work now because you got when when you were nominated for your team's every year on on your radio show. Usually get some kind of apparel, right jersey hat? Did you ever get a beanie at all? You know, I have to go through it. I have in the Mallard Mansion buried in

the bowels of the Mallard Mansion. I have an entire section of hats that I have gained from a lot of them from listeners, a lot of them from freebees back when they used to get freebes out. They don't do that anymore. Um, I was gonna wear I was excited because I didn't even realize i'd gotten this. I don't remember ever paying for this, but I got a Tito's Tacos hat and I was gonna wear it to

promote Tito's Tacos. But they're not open. So my favorite tacos shop in l A Is Tito's Tacos and and so I was gonna do that, but as like, what's the point. They're not open, So when they open up, let me know. When they open up, you're you're you're in that part of town, guests gun and I will rock the Tito's Tacos capus and omage to Tito's Tacos. Definitely do so. Now I'm I'm encouraged by this. So are you gonna do this? Are you doing this once every week? Or what are you talking about? What the

the cameos? Oh no, the cameo. The way this works is it once the page goes live, it's hunting season. So like anybody you listening, you're like, hey, this would be kind of fun. Maybe I'll do this and harass Mallard and make them do a video about the Lakers or some crap that. Um. You just go on there and then you have I guess there's a couple of

days I have to get it back to you. But yeah, it's open, so you know, can be endless people can submit this or no one, UM might want to do we only had we already had a couple, which is which is encouraging. As I said, because the cameo website, I'm not even I didn't even promote it. I just said I might do it, and then I did it. But it's cameo dot com. There's an app also that they have and you know, I don't do it for me, but there's like big, big celebrities that charge a ton

of money for these things. I'm I'm on the low end of it because I'm a nobody. But there's like we went through some of the names. Flavor. Flavor is on there, and he's like charging two hift bucks for a message dah these. I didn't know how long these things should be, like I did, I wasn't sure, like I've never done him before, so I'm trying to figure that out. I was playing around with the app. The first one was too short, the second one was probably too long, so I gotta mess around with that. I

apologize for that, but I'm figuring out. Uh. It's it's pretty funny, man. Some of the some of the names we went through them before that are on here. You're like, whoa, what the heck? Jamal Andrews, remember Jamal Anderson, the Dirty Bird? Yeah, in the ant L he's on there. Dave wan Steady, Hugh Jackson, Oh my god, the Great. He was probably good at this because Hugh can regale. He's a good BS artist. He's got the gift for gab. You um, not not the gift for coaching, but the gift for gab.

I don't know. I don't know anyway, So if you want interest in that, I'll get guests on on there and uh and we'll have a contest to see who gets more cameos. How about that we could do that? I wonder if we can include any any kind of play by play coverage of you cooking or or barbecuing. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the Heart radio apps. Search f s R to listen live. Yeah, I would be

open to that. And you know, Mallard cooking on the cameo, cooking on the cameo. If you want that, I can. That's a great idea I'd be open to do anyway. As you know, I make the meanest Philly cheese steak west of the Mississippi, and it's an amazing homemade sandwich. I get the bread that's shipped out from Philadelphia. I have the thin cut ribby, although maybe not anymore because I guess there's no meat. It's all going away. Uh.

And then I chopped that up even more. I've got the the onion, the bell pepper, and the pro Bolone cheese, not the whiz, not the cheese whiz, the pro Bolone cheese. That's how you do a cheese steak, right. My friend Tony Bruno taught me that back in the day, and he's authentic Philadelphia and Fats has encouraged me as well. So that's the way that goes all right, So moving on, Hold on, you're not done. Because you mentioned that, you

mentioned the cooking. We are surprisingly especially you. You You had surprisingly a lot of people that chimed in on some of the podcast the last couple of weeks because of fasting, Like you have really gotten this. This is big picked up steam. Surprisingly. I don't know if that's because of a lack of meat that's actually coming into some of our cities or because people are actually trying to trim

down and and and and change their way of life. Yeah. Yeah, listen, And it's not for everybody, and uh it might be total bullshit, but it works, um for me. So it's it's the placebo effect, right, you know, human beings when they even if it's a placebo and you tell them it's a placebo, it still works for for a lot of people. So um, yeah, it's been it's been good for me and I you know, I've had a lifetime battle with being a big fatass, so this has really helped.

And I had a diet before I've told the story. I lost a lot of weight and I gained gained quite a bit of it back when I got married. And this has been a way to get back to where I wanted to be. So um, it's it's worked for me, and it's really mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter that you're not eating right. You just to me, I just drink water. I don't. Some people fast and they don't even drink water. But

I don't know how you do it, guess com. But I'm I'll just drink water and fill my stumming up with water. There's no calories in it. And then I figured, like, I'll work out, although now I can just go for walks, but it's a million degrees where I live, so I can get you know, I can, I can sweat and then that'll burn off the water and so then it's no big deal. Yes, So I was reading some stuff online, uh, and I always look at YouTube for for ways that

people do fast. And part of of what I have done is I've stayed away from taking like supplements or adding any kind of protein or creating to my water. So I've done that, but then I've also gone days where I'll have some beat juice put into my water, have some creating put in, and then work out and then fast. But for everybody that tries or does do this.

I experienced this and you didn't tell me this last week, but I did complete a forty eight hour fast and the first thing I ate, um, Ben, it would right through me. I mean seconds after I digested it is right, three man. I would have appreciated a little heads up after a da or fast, like, hey, this is what happened. But I kind of experienced the ben mallor gall stone bladder.

You did, you had you had the explosion. No, I didn't have it, but like I was, I was trending in that right direction where I was like, all right, get the funk out of my way, welcome to my world. Now all we need to do is have your gall bladder taken out and then we will complete the mission here. But yeah, it is wild man. And you know, I think a lot of it is because I had my

gall bladder taken out. But I hear from other people who do the fasting, like after you fast for a certain over, I think it is about forty eight hours. Is that there's that threshold and I usually try to go once or twice a week. I've told the story I tried to go over that. But this week my wife has put me on. She's embargoed. I'm only a lot to eat one meal a day, she says, because

she's just still my birthday celebration. So she said, I can eat one meal at a but and then next week I'll get back to the h my michig with the fasting and all that full fasting. Because you junked out a little bit. Eddie sent you something banana cream pie and then banana cream pie. Yeah, you didn't send me a banana creampie. Edie sent me a banana cpie and he likes me more than you. He sent me a banana cream pie, but he sent you a pie

and then lied to you about the vending machine. So I know we brought We brought this up the other night and he's declared victory no matter what he says, he won. Um. But you we did talk about your weird addiction to Mint kit kat. Yeah, my my, my longtime grandfather passed away, uh several years ago, but he got me onto to mint when I was a child. And that's good because I've heard guest Gun that if you don't get a kid into mint early, they don't get into it like you cross a certain age you're

not into mint. I don't know if that's true or bullshit, but I love mint. My my dad was a big fan and still is of mint ship ice cream of that, and so I then, you know, copied my dad. I get. I get sometimes I get chocolate chip ice cream. I love cookie dough. But I'll occasionally too reminisce and go back to my youth. I will get mint chip ice cream. It flashes me back to when I was like eight years old. So as yes, so as soon as they put mint kit cats in there, I kid you not.

Last week it was just the tail end of April. I had the first two and then over the weekend. I know that I ate seven more so I was probably of the consumption of that one row. What does it C six or B six or whatever. That was all me. So it was not only a dollar, was a dollar ten cents because I had used my debit card for the transaction, So that was all me. I was a guilty party. Yeah. I was thinking about bringing back the vending machine draft Part two to determine what

will be the last item left. But then I thought, now they're they're gonna start refilling the vending machine, so there's no point in doing that. So on that you can always do like vending machine versus um health healthcare items here in the in the studio because I've heard about you know, I gotta come. I gotta go in there because I have not been in a while, and

I have to pick up some mail. And I was supposed to do it last weekend and then and you know, I didn't do it or whatever, but I'm gonna do it this weekend. So I'm gonna have to go in. And I told my wife, I said, listen, I'll take you with me, but you gotta sit in the car because this company has a zero tolerance policy. I don't lose my job because I took my wife into work to pick up the mail. So yeah, we got a thermostat in here with obviously temperature for the studios, but

we have a thermometer as well handwipes. And then every window door is plastered with these giant I heeart warnings about bringing in your own headphones, gloves, masks, the whole smash. Good times. Can we now get the operational desk? What the hell did I watch? This is great? So I gave guests got a homework assignment. Now, I have been a big fan of documentaries for a long time, all right, but there's only a few that reached top level, very few.

Most of them are fucking terrible, all right. They suck, But I'll watch them anyway because I'm I'm not kind of person. I realized that these things are all biased. I think everything is biased because people have their own bias in life from life experience. But anyway, so this is called Operational Desk. It actually came out a couple of years ago, and I mentioned it on the radio when it first came out and I first saw it. I think it was originally on Showtime, but it's now

on Netflix. And I cannot recommend this enough. So to give you the backstory, and and I know, I wrote a few notes down because I watched it again, and I could watch this thing probably every other month and not get bored with it, not get old with it, not get tired with it, any of that stuff. So it's a it's a documentary about essentially the early nineties, wild and crazy late eighties, early nineties Miami floored, the drug scene, the whole thing. It's a true story. That's

the most amazing part of this. When you watch it, you're like, well, this is this gotta be bullshit, This can't be real. This has to be made up. But but no, it's about these criminal I guess, for lack of a better term, masterminds, who mixed with playboys in Florida and it was sex, drugs and rock and roll and hookers and guns and all kinds of debauchery. It's it's like the story of the Cocaine Cowboys, but it's like it's all interviews and it's it's better than that.

And the big parts of it, though, were the fact that these guys, the reason they became operational Odessa is the government got tipped off that these guys were buying trying to buy Russian helicopters, and they succeeded and and also bought a Russian sub. This is when the Soviet Union crash. And the star of this podcast is a guy named this gangster named Tarzan, who is one of the most engaging bad guys you'd ever want to mean. I mean, I feel like I want to work for

Tarzan after watching this. His real name is Ludwig Fainberg. I believe it is his real name, and he's just this like burly guy, very vibrant, smile, charming. He knows he's done bad things, but doesn't seem to care. And uh, you know, he thinks they're not really that bad and all that. He's very enthusiastic about life and and uh, so I guess he actually I think he's originally from the Ukraine. He's actually not from Russia, but he lives in Russia and he I guess he you know, goes

a side by side countries. Obviously been had many battles and whatnot over the years. But but anyway, he came to America and was an enforcer. His first job when he he came to American immigrated was to to work for the Gambino crime family in New York, New York. So um, I I loved it, Gascott. I think it was great that he ran a strip club called Porky's in Miami, which was highlighted in the show. Oh and then he became I guess he was the go to guy for the Russian mob scene in South Florida, and

he started making tons of money. Like if you needed if you needed drugs, you want to to tarzan if you needed women to hook up with you went to Tarzan if you needed what anything, you need to kill somebody? He went to Tarzan. He would know a guy. He he knows a guy. And then there's the other character. There's this a couple other guys. There was this exotic car guy, this wand Almeida. Um it was like the Miami playboy guy. And then you had my other favorite

that all three of them were great. But this guy Tony Nelson, Tony Yester, who was supposedly was I guess he worked for Pablo Escobar. He's got ties to Pablo Escobar. And the guy is still an international fugitive today and they interviewed him. Imagine doing a documentary and interviewing a fucking international fugitive. I mean, that just blows my mind. But that just blows my mind that they did this.

It's unreal. And that you just mentioned Cameo. I was actually initially petrified because when they did interview him, they went right out of the gate to ask him about the actual transgressions that he had and he says, do you really want to talk about this? Let's not talk about this, And I was like, oh ship, they actually got him, and then he's ready to shoot these camera guys and they cut away and then they go to him and he's more relaxed. But you go back to

Tarzan real quick. Ben. It was amazing because the first thing that he purchased when he landed in Miami was a three fifty seven magnum. And then when they talked about the helicopters that you mentioned, Um, I will spoil it, but you can imagine we do these games and these quizzes and you say, hey, how much is this or how many people was this? And I usually shoot the moon and you know, blow my wad on on over

shooting it on something. These guys bought helicopters for five dollars, Russian military helicopters and I guess another spoiler alert, which is which is great. When they were negotiating to buy the Soviet sub remember the option, they had the option to get the nukes, so you would offer these these you know, random hustlers from Miami nuclear weapons and uh, it's just there. It's unbelievable you're into these kind of things. I cannot recommend this enough. And I actually he was curious.

I looked up a story was how did this all come about? And so the documentary maker, um, he he said he had a friend of him tipped him off about Tarzan, right, the guy that's the start of the documentary. And so at the time, Tarzan was in in jail and I think like Argentina or something like that. I forget which country, and I apologize, but he was in jail somewhere. So anyway, this documentary guys like, I gotta I gotta talk this guy and see if we've got

a film. So he paid off the prison guard. He said he paid the prison guard where Tarzan was staying. Five He had been texting Tarzan on a on a was it a BlackBerry blueberry? What enough blueberry? BlackBerry back in those days, And so he contacted Tarzan. I guess is a lot of this was originally shot about ten years ago and then it came out in originally eighteen.

But so the guy goes to this prison, the documentary maker, and you know, Tarzan is a he's a very nice guy, but he didn't know this and and you know, he's nice to your face, but he could stab you in the back, those kind of guys. And so he goes and pays off the guy at the prison in whatever country. It was five dollars to get into the prison, five

dollars to get out alive. So so there was the five hundred dollars just to get in and then five dollars protection so you don't get killed in the prison. And then he sat down with Tarzan, and Tarzan you know, talked and just talked and talked and talked, and so the guys like, we got something. And and then he went down the list and went to one i'l made it and Wan was in for it and all that stuff. And so then Tarzan escaped from jail and became a

fugitive and moved back to Russia. And then that allowed them to interview him very casually Tarzan. So then I was trying to figure out how the fund did this guy, Tony yester Uh come into this, right, the Pablo Escobar guy. And so this is this is so perfect. Right when I heard this, I laughed my ass off, saying, when you watch the documentary, will enjoy this. So so Tarzan and Wan are regaling this documentary maker with all these

wild stories about their lives. Right, so they're still talking to Tony, the the international fugitive Wan and and Tarzan Andre talking to this guy. So Tony is like, what the funk? I want to be part of this, you know, I was part of this, you know. And so he out of the blue from a from the What's app, the documentary maker gets a random message on the What's App.

Hey it's Tony and uh and and he I forget what the line he used was when it was something like, uh, why don't you step up to the big leagues instead of the minor leagues? You want to know what really happened like that, you know, something some line like that and uh. And then they had to negotiate and they like I think it was in Africa and an airport in Africa. It was. It's just crazy, I mean it is.

It is an amazing thing that not only getting the helicopters, having to get them out of St. Petersburg in Russia and all the obstacles they had to overcome. Yeah, because you got you had gangsters in Russia when the government was was obviously crumbling, and Jan had to fake it like he was Pablo Escobar to come. Yeah, that's another

gred that's another part of it. Yeah. I love the fact that and he taught I think the most The most polarizing moment when all of this is when they sent undercovers to to kind of unmask this entire incident. Tarzan actually was getting it was in the middle of a conversation when with an undercover and they were in a hotel room and he looks at a clock next to the bed and he says, that clock has a camera in it. That clock has a camera. And the guy's like, what are you talking about? And he's like,

I know, I've seen that before. That clock has a camera in And he's like, well, if you think there's a camera, to go check it. And he didn't call his bluff and he didn't check it. But it turned out there was a camera and a microphone because the FEDS, were you spying on these guys? Well that was Tarza is like, how many how many hours did they have of talking about drugs, guns, murder and uh and all

the rest of these. Now I don't want to I don't know if I should do this or not, guess gun, but I looked up because I was curious what This documentary came out a couple years ago. I say, what happened to these guys? I know what happened. Do you want me to share that now or should I? Should I not? Shire? Uh? Yeah, sure, I want to? Okay, all right, so you know two an this is spoiler. Also, so what happened to the lives of these three guys since the documentary? So we'll start out we had the good,

the bad, and the ugly. Alright, the good I guess if you you're a fan of the documentary, is Tarzan is still living in Russia. Um. He says he's still committing crime because he's he's that's his career. But I guess in Russia it's allowed, so he's he's free. One al Mada, Um, the Miami playboy guy, is in jail. He was convicted on drug charges in I think, and so he went to jail. He was sentenced to six years in jail for drug charges. So the Miami Playboys

down for the count for six years. And then and I just found this out that Tony Yester Nelson, Tony Yester, the guy with ties to Pablo Escobar. Um, he was just extradited from Italy last year. I didn't realize this last summer from Italy to the United States to face drug and guns artists so he is no longer an international fugitive. The law enforcement caught up with him and he is now he's a he's facing he's facing a maximum penalty of life in federal prison if convicted on

all all charges. So he he could be down for the count they say from the light late nineteen eighties. This is from the Orlando United States District Attorney's Office, Middle District of Florida. It says here this guy Tony Yester, Uh from the eighties to the early nineties are actually late nineties, was part of a group involved in importing kilogram amounts of cocaine and other narcotics in the United States, including by negotiating the purchase of a Russian diesel submarine

for Colombian drug smugglers. According to law enforcement, he fled to South Africa in nine seven to escape prosecution and Uh then they began investigating in January fifteen. I guess they get tipped off or something like that, and they still doing marijuana and whatnot. But anyway, so it's a lot of legalis and all that. So I'm guessing this

documentary guest did not help that. The You can talk to your old man about this but I'm getting I'm pretty sure that the law enforcement do not like when a international fugitive does an interview for a documentary makes him look bad, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, The first thing he said when I when I talked to him about this, he said, like what you just mentioned

was the he's like cocaine cowboys, man. Because I thought, obviously I wasn't in that, uh and the know all at that time because I was really young, but I thought New York was a lot of this, and Miami was just more flare around it, you know, Studio fifty four and whatnot, and how New York was back in the day with with the mob. But man, Miami was so they were just drunk on drugs and women and it was it was wild. Man. I you know, I have a who wasn't there there in that time either.

I've only been to Miami a couple of times, and I was there last. I actually was there in I was there for the World Series in ninety seven, so I was around that time. I wonder if I crossed

paths with Tarzan? How cool that? But the beautiful thing was that one Almeida was was custom making speedboats that had twin turbines like like a plane, like a fucking planet at l A X or something like that at like Guardia, but two million dollar boats and they were only to traffic in and out narcotics, cocaine especially, So, man, what it was fun. It was a lot of fun watching this thing and to see them actually pull a few stunts off. I mean, these guys could do no wrong.

These guys lived their best life even though a short period of time. Yeah it is again. I cannot just wrap this up here. I cannot recommend it enough. I only talk about these documentaries on a podcast like this if they are elite. Otherwise I don't waste my time or just goof on them. But the Mallard doc rating score one to ten, with ten being like Get Me Roger Stone or Supersize Me Too, or any of those great documentaries. This one on a scale of one to ten,

with ten being best. Gets a entertaining, thrilling, funny plot, twist, great detail, comedy, um, all of it, everything, twist and turns, all of that stuff gets the highest score you can possibly get. Operation Odessa. It's on Netflix right now, Gascon. Any score you want to give here, give it ten, especially because the level of suspension, suspense and danger involved

was was full tilt. This is this was I mean, we've we've watched some documentaries before and a lot of that had to do with with Nike and the shoe companies, and that's try the scheme, which was pretty good, but not as good as Yeah, Roger Stone you mentioned, but I love that. Get me Roger Stone, and that's one of my favorites. But these guys are in their prime with their age, and they're dealing with Colombian drug lords.

They're dealing with Russian gangsters, mob bosses, the FEDS, the d e A, the FBI, the n s A. Like you had six or seven different bureaus on these guys in the United States and they had people hunting them down internationally too. It was awesome. Yeah, it's a fun watch. It's a great watch. And if you you know, listen, you can't do anything else really these days, all this stuff starting to open up. But to check it out again, tell me if you like it or not, tell me

if I'm a schmuck for recommending it. Operation Odessa, and that is that if you want to be part of the Malle militia well, you're listening right now, so you are part of the malle militia, but interact with us. We have a mailbag podcast. It will be dropping later this weekend. Those are questions submitted by you, and I've opened it up to the email. I was going through some of the email the Real Fifth Hour at gmail

dot com. So if you're not a Facebook person like guess con the Real Fifth Hour at gmail dot com. So just put question in the headline as a question for the podcast and we'll hopefully get to it at some point here on a future podcast. But you can also follow me on Twitter at Ben Maller if you don't know that by now, I'm on there a lot.

That's the cesspool of social media. Also on Facebook, which is I guess we're free speech is no longer around, but you can go on their Facebook slash Ben Mallard's Show. That's our show page. We just crossed the ten thousand like thing on there, which is pretty cool, So thank you for that. Keep it going. Let's let's grow that up, get it to the levels twitters at and then also available on Instagram. I'm new to the Graham and you can check that out at Ben Maller on Fox and

guest cons all over some of those places. Yeah no, no cameo for me just yet. But on Twitter at David J. Gascon, Instagram at Dave Gascon. Alright, listen, I have a great weekend. Remember the podcast every day. I'll have another podcast tomorrow and the day after that, and then back to the radio after that. And to have a great day today. Thank you.