Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: The Mallerism Bites Back

Transcript

The Fifth Hour: The Mallerism Bites Back · The Ben Maller Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Kabooms.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, it's clearinghouse of
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: hot takes. Break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: with Ben Mahller starts right now.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: In the air everywhere.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: A Happy Saturday. Oh what a day it is today?
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Holy can only a.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Big cottage football day? It is championship Saturday. You already
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: knew that.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Am I excited to watch the Conference USA championship game
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: in Jacksonville, Alabama between in Jacksonville State and Kennesaw State. No,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: there's two games that I have circled today and can
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: you guess which two games I have circle? Now you
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: might be hearing this podcast after these games have been played,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: So take this for what it's worth. But Alabama and
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Georgia Georgia Georgia A. What are the two and a
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: half point favorite? I think something like that against Alabama
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: And that's in Atlanta, the SEC Championship game, which is
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: four o'clock Eastern today one o'clock I believe in the West.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: And then the Granddaddy of them all from Lucas Oil
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Stadium in Indianapolis. Last time I was in Indianapolis, the
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Colts played at the RCA Dome. Have not been to
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Lucas Oil Stadium, but in Indianapolis there the Hoosiers.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: It's like a home game Indiana.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: That's a basketball school in Ohio State, the Big Bad
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Buck guys in Ohio State.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: A four point favorite in that game.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: And that is the game that I have circled along
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: with Georgia and Alabama.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So look forward to watching those games.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: And the cool thing about it is that I don't
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: have any you know, inside friendship with anybody. I just
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: want to watch the game and enjoy the game. And
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: will I put some bets down? Maybe I will, maybe
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: I won't. I don't know yet.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I'll handicap the game.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: A little bit later, both games and see what happens
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: on this podcast we have when the Malarism bites back
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: and the Great bag Shakedown. Yes, all right, we're gonna
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: begin with this, so uh, you know, I want to
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: have some fun here. I want to enjoy things, and
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: this podcast over the last couple of months has just
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: become a weekly update on me injuring myself. It's just
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: such a klutz and it happened yet again. So there
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: are people in the world who trained for marathons. I
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: think these people are nuts, but they go on twenty
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: six point two miles. My brother, my older brother did
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: that for years, ran the New York Marathon and they got,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: you know, knees made out of titanium, lungs built like
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: wind tunnels. There are people who climb mountains, real mountains
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: like Mount Everest, Kilimanjaro, and even those fake icelandic ones
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: influencers pose in front of and all that. And then
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: there are the rest of us navigating something far more dangerous,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: the silverware drawer in your kitchen. So this past week
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I discovered a simple truth and I got burned by
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: my own words. Burned by my own words. So there
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: are some phrases. We call them malarisms that well.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: That's what people have told me. I didn't come up
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: with that term, but some of you knuckleheads have said that.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: One of them that I use when a washed up play,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I'll give you an example. Darius Sleigh this week was
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: fired by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was picked up on
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: waivers by Buffalo, so is Brandon Cooks, and he came
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: over from the Saints. He asked to be fired, and
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: he went to Buffalo. And Darius Slaye never reported least
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: that I even showed up whatever he said. He was
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: contemplating retirement. And so the term we would use is
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: don't catch a falling knife. Don't try to catch a
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: falling knife, and it has come back to bite me
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: like a rabid raccoon in the moonlight. So the saying originally,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: which was borrowed from the people on Wall Street warning
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: investors about jumping into early buying a crashing stock, you
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: gotta wait.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Well, it works equally.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Well for washed up football players, as we just laid out,
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: and apparently for yours truly sports talk radio host pretending
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: to be a part time dishwasher. I was bragging about
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: my dishwashing ability. And technically this was not while dishwashing,
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: this was the postgame show. It did not happen. I
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: was successfully able to clean off all the gunk, all
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: the dew hickeys that get on the food or the
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: food he gets on the plates. But after the overnight
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: shifted and so here I was very proud of my
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Benny the dishwasher title I'm running on fumes is I'm
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: just setting the picture for you.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Eyes are glazed over. If you work overnight, you know
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: what it's like.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: My eyes are glazed like I'm at a crispy kream
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: on the curveyor belt and I'm just trying to put
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: the forks and the spoons.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Away after doing the dishes. I normally do the dishes.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I wash the dishes and put them in the dishwasher
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: before the show, and then by the time I get
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: home from the studio, I can then put the dishes away.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: And that's how it works. I'm letting you inside the
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Malor mansion and so no parade, no ticker tape, no balloons,
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: just a middle aged man. I guess I'm older than
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: that now, going against gravity and gravity it turns out
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: wins every time. The cutlery began to drop as I
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: was putting it away, and I was like an outfielder
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: for the Giants of the Padres, or the Diamondbacks or
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: the Rockies, chasing a line drive hit by shoheo tani.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: And it turned out it was windy, and my instincts
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: just kind of took over. I did the thing you
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: can't do at the time. You can't do it.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: What did I do? I lunged, I reached, which.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Would not have been a problem if I didn't give
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: you my amazing athletic ability, where I actually succeeded. The
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: cutlery began to drop, and I lunged, I reached, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: I got what I was trying to reach for, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I then failed also, So I succeeded and failed.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: At the same moment. What are you talking about. You
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: can't succeed. It failed the same ball, but it makes money.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: So I succeeded in the fact that I prevented the
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: newly wake silverware from crashing to the dirty floor.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I was successful.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I prevented that from happening, and in doing so, I
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: yet again sliced a large chunk of my thumb bloodshd
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: in the kitchen two point zero or three point oh
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: a culinary crime scene CSI dishwashing unit. It has happened again.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: So this was not chopping onions. This is a whole
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: different animal. So an injury tent moment, without the athletic
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: trainer in sight, no blue medical pop up, no Bill
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Belichick looking nearby asking about my thumb injury designation. This
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: was not the Michael Jordan flu game or the Kobe
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: food poisoning game. There was no violin music in the background,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: just the gentle hum of the dishwasher, and that realization,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: as it's happening in slow motion, that I am now
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: a three for three person when it comes to finger injuries,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: both thumbs and an index finger the finger triple crown.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Instead of twiddling my thumbs, I am now slicing my
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: thumbs like deli meat at a bodega in Manhattan before
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: all the bodegas became weed shops. Back in the old days,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: when I first went to New York, back on my day,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: I went to Manhattan and visit my brother, and.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, this is amazing.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: And there were bodegas with turkey sandwiches. Everywhere there was that,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: and they were in Times Square. There were a lot
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: of peep shows, women dance and nudes, nudes, nudes and
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: all that, and now not so much. All right, But
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: it turns out the hardest job in America is not
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: quarterback in the NFL. It's it's not surgeon. It isn't
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: college football coach dealing with boosters breathing down your neck,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Nil divas and all that people with dragon breath trying
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: to get more money. Now, it turns out that for me,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: performing simple household tasks while half asleep has got to
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: be the hardest job in America.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: It's just got to be.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: So let me tell you something. Dishwashing, as it turns out,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: is not that easy. And you're dealing with very sharp
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: knives and forks that could stab your eye out and
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: all that stuff. I'm literally risking my life to put
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the knife and fork away. And so and this is
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: not the quiet, polite chore that the sitcoms back in
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: the eighties and nineties made it out to be. In
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: many ways, it's a combat sport. This is the ui
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: See of domestic responsibility. And I'm a champion. Like you
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: don't hear Joe Rogan screaming about it, but he should.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: He should have a little podcast. Oh my god, he's
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: going for the spachela. He's got no regard for his hands,
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: no regard. That's how it felt. One wrong move and
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: your thumb looks like it went twelve rounds with a
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: broken blender. Somewhere on the NFL injury list, there is
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: a space waiting for me. Benny the dishwasher, right thumb
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: listed as questionable day to day with stupidity capital s stupidity.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Now I have become a walking cautionary tail, a public
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: service announcement. And I used to be the king of
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: PSAs on the Overnight Show. But again, this job is
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: not as easy as it looks. And so it's a
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: reminder of another phrase that we use a lot. Sometimes
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: the upper balcony is empty, and that's my way of
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: saying that the mental gas tank was abandoned somewhere around
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: three in the morning and after the final monologue about
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Pete Carroll or Lamar Jackson or some other sports owner
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: writing checks with other people's money. And yet the world
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: expects you to transition seamlessly from talk radio insomniac, just
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: a total lunatic, and to mourning homemaker, Penny the homemaker.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: No stretching, no warm up, none of that, no wardrobe change,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: no rehab assignment in triple A. There's no graphic that
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: flashes up coming up next. The morning chores sponsored by
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Niasporren and the people that make band aids, Johnson and Johnson.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: That should happen. There should be a household combine the
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: way the NFL does it. And we talked about this
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: with the Olympics, the domestic Olympics or whatever, where you're
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: doing these household chores. Forget bench press. Can you scrub
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: a pan without having it drop? Can you transfer leftovers
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: into tupperware without losing thirty percent to spillage? These are
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: serious problems you have to deal with. Can you unload
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: a dishwasher without slicing a finger and inventing a new
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: curse word. That's the real test of a person. So
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: give me a stop watch and I'll take whatever, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I'll show you what an elite athlete is. I'm not
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: just a gas bag, okay. And injuries are part of sports.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: And you know it's like Jason Tatum got hurt for
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: the Celtics. You're gonna bring him back next year. I
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: cut my fingers three different ways to Sunday, I'll be back.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: And it all comes back to one phrase, don't catch
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: a falling knife.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And I've used that hundreds of times to describe the
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: downward spiral of quarterbacks past their prime.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: The wide receiver that can't play anymore.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: The baseball pitchers lost three miles per hour and gained
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: five pounds around the waist. The coach clinging to a
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: playbook last updated in the year two thousand. Who's got
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: a young lady friend who wasn't even alive in the
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: year two thousand. It means don't overreact, okay, don't panic,
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: don't try to intervene in something that's already going south.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: The phrase as we used it there, but in my
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: kitchen that phrase became prophecy and I ignored it. I
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: don't catch a falling knife. Wall Street uses it, Washington
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: uses it. We use it in sports radio. In my house,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: the Malor Mansion, it became the medical file titled thumb
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Incident number three, right thumb Incident number three.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: And it has been.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Said that doing radio is like shouting down an elevator
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: shaft hoping someone hears you. You never know who's out there.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: It could be the biggest audience the want. There could
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: be like four people listening. You never know because it's
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: it's not where you're in the same room. And I
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: would add cleaning up the house after after doing the
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: radio shows, like tight roping.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: It's like you're tight roping across the Grand.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Canyon and you you've got the wrong socks on, and
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: you got a plastic fork and you're balancing a stick.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know why you're balancing a stick, but you
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: got a stick.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: That doesn't make a lot of sense if you're going
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: across the Grand Canyon and there's no applause, there's no trophy.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: There's bandages, and there's a lot of them. So here
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I am a man with I'm like Mordecai three fingers Brown.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I got three finger injuries as a baseball joke. Three
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: finger injuries, an empty upper balcony, and a respect for
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: the amount of damage a knife, a falling knife can
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: do at that velocity. And I am not twiddling my thumbs.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: I am protecting them like they're the last seconds on
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: the game clock. And maybe that is the lesson in
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: all of this nonsense, that we're all one spoon drop
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: away from humility. Doesn't matter if you host a radio
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: show on six hundred radio stations or a backyard barbecue.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter whether you're paid to call football games
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: or wash football shaped plates. Gravity is gonna get you, right,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: don't catch a falling knife, don't underestimate the silverware drawer,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: the transition of passing the silverware putting it in the drawer,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: don't try to rush it.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Just don't do it. Do not do it.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: And for the love of all that's holy, buy band
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: aids in bulk.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Go to Costco and buy a side of band aids.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: And I'll be back in the line up in the
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: kitchen soon, probably for next week's chores.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Thumb be willing, and so then that's that. That's that.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Now turning the page to what I call the Great
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: bag Shakedown. That's right, my friends, gather around. It's another
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: story on the Fifth Hour podcast. Oh my god, yep,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: another story. So let's talk about one of the great
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: nickel and dime hustles of our time. And no one
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: has the balls to say no to it. A con
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: so petty? How petty is it? So petty, so small minded,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: so proudly wrapped in bureaucratic smugness. You'd think it was
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: crafted in a Sacramento think tank, powered by Kale smoothies
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: and virtue virtue signaling emojis. If you know what I'm
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: talking about I am discussing for a few minutes the
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: ten cent single use bag fee in the People's Republic
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: of California. It's ten cents, better known by its gangster name,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: a dime. Then let me preface this by saying this
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: is not new. This ten cent tax has been around
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: for a while. It's a coin that barely registers on
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: the seismic scale of economics, and somehow has become the
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: line in the sand between free people and the nickel
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: and dimers who pretend they're saving the oceans one checkout
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: lane at a time. And I say this with every
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: ounce of conviction. And this came up on the radio
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: show I have left in my bagless hands. That is
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the conviction I have. I am not paying it. I'm
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: not paying the bag fee. I'm not paying for it,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: not now, not ever, Sam. I am why because, as
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: I explained, this is not a Doctor Seuss book. But
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: as I explained to Alf the alien ol Piner on
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: the radio show this week, this is not about the dime.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It is about the principle.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: And he lives in a state where they also Nikolin Daimya,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: it's about government that wants you to applaud while they
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: reach into your pocket like a silent film pickpocket and
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: a bowler's hat. And I want to paint the picture
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: for you. So I carry my groceries out of the
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: store with my own bear hands, Benny bare hands. Five
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: items or forty six out ofs it doesn't matter, And
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I must look to people that don't know me, like
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: a modern day Charlie Chaplin. If you know early Hollywood,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: the famous scene the pawn shop was the movie where
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: he's balancing drills, hammers, loose cables. It's the vaudevillian acrobat.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Or there was the Steve Martin planes, trans and automobiles.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Remember he was hauling luggage through the O'Hare airport in
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: the winter and all of his hands.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Were full and all that. Or you could go home alone.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: The mom Catherine O'Hara and home alone.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Remember she was sprinting through the airport clutching all of
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: her bags, trying to trying to get everything there it
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: needed to be. And it's like me trying to escape
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: a hostage situation. And listen, I'm gonna keep doing it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Why am I glutting for punishment? Probably so, probably so,
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: But the main reason is because I refuse to give
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: these plastic bag tax collectors a single red scent. I'm
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: not doing it. I'm sorry, not sorry, I'm not doing it.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: This is the California paradox. It is a beautiful state,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: amazing geography, oceans here, there, and everywhere. It's also a
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: state that thinks that you're too stupid, those that live here,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: to handle your own shopping habits, yet just enlightened enough
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: to be guilt tripped into paying for the privilege of
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: carrying your own groceries out of the store. Now they
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: call this environmental stewardship is what they call it. I
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: call it government mandated perse snatching. They're literally pickpockets, is
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: what they are. And it drives me nuts. And listen,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: if this were actually about the Earth, if this was
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: about it, it's the what's the word I'm looking for here?
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, think about human beings, the arrogance of it,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: the smugness of human beings. If this were actually about
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Mother Earth and it were truly about the oceans and
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: the wildlife and reducing waste, well, then the cost would
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: be built directly into the product.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be the case? Wouldn't that make sense?
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Well, well, just it's like when I go to a
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Mexican restaurant and I eat the chips and salsa and
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: it's given complimentary. I go to an Italian restaurant and
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: they put a loaf of bread, warm bread and butter
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: on the table. I know, Oh, it's not free, it's
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: baked into the price of the If I'm at a
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Mexican restaurant, the tacos or an Aian restaurant, the fetccini
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: alfredo with the beautiful sauce and the little chicken pieces.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: In there and all that, so I know that going in.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I know that going in, and yet here we are
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: and it's like, no, no, no, it's a we're not
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: gonna do it that way.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Nope, not not gonna do it. Sorry, not sorry. Then
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: why don't why don't you do it? Uh?
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: Well, because it's quiet, efficient, invisible, like any real environmental
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: form worth its carbon footprint.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: But that's not what California does.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: California insists on the public shaming business model. A ding
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: ding ding ding ding to your dignity and your wallet,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: a scarlet letter, B for bagless if you decline, and
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: a D for donor if you bend the knee and
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: cough up that dime, and the dime isn't the goal.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I know what's going on. It's the guilt trip, That's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: what it is. It's the guilt.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: And here's the I guess the punchline of all this,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the plastic bag waste. They've had this for a little
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: while now and they've done studies on it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: You'd think, oh, this solved the problem. No it didn't.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Plastic bag waste did not plummet. Studies across multiple cities
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: around the around the United States where they have this
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: have shown people simply bought more trash bags to replace
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: the free ones they used to get. So, congratulations, California.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: You solved absolutely nothing. And you are charging your residence
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: the people that pay your stupid salaries for the privilege
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: of that. And that's the way things roll in the
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Golden State. The buocic what's the word I'm looking for,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: the bureaucracy that turns common sense into compost and bills
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: bills you for the magic trick. And this is the
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: I know I'm going on a rant here, but this
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: is the kind of thinking that this relentless barrage of
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: petty mandates that sends people sprinting out of California trying
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: to get to Texas and Florida like they're fleeing Jurassic Park.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like, we got to get out of here.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: The stampedes of taxpayers galloping past the now leaving California side,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: while overhead the state government waves lovingly with one hand
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: and reaches into the till with the other. And here's
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: the part we really pound the desk over California politicians,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: these knuckleheads, these dingle bears, actually believe this is meaningful.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: They believe that charging you a dime at checkout is
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: going to reverse the tides, cleanse the oceans, purify the skies,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: and maybe even fix.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: The clippers who hate each other.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: It is the environmental equivalent to putting a band aid
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: on a volcanic eruption. It's the symbolism masquerading his policy.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: And you know, I'm annoyed by anyone in sports who
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: does virtue signaling. And I pointed out all the time, well,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: also in this world, same thing. It's people who want
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: credit for caring, not results. I really really care. And
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: the bag fee is the government's version of the TSA
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: making you take your shoes off. It doesn't actually solve
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: the problem. But boy, boy, does it make the rule
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: makers feel important? And now I can hear the critics
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: warm it up?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Oh but Ben, it's just ten cents, And that, my friends,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: is the lullaby the ruling political dopes sing as they
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: tuck your wallet into their backpack. It's boiling frog on one.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: It starts out with the dime. Well that's not working.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Why don't we raise it to a quarter? Okay, that'll work.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: And now that doesn't work, how about fifty cents a bag?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Do I get that?
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Then it becomes a fee, and then it's a it's
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: a surcharge, and before long you're paying something called a
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: grocery transport Optimization compliance fee. Why not more red tape,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: more bureaucracy, because someone in Sacramento, the state capitol of California,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: dreamed it up at a wellness retreat while doing urine
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: therapy with Doc mic in Hawaii. And we know how
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: this works. They never stop charging, they just add these
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Once these things come in, they're not going anywhere in
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: the grand opera of government overreach. The bag fee is
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: the piccolo. It's small shrimp, annoying, but it signals the
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: whole orchestra is tuning up for the big performance. And
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: so here I am just a struggling overnight gas bag,
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: marching proudly from the store to my car, from Trader
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Joe's or wherever, juggling boxes of pasta, rotisserie, chickens, bell, pepper, garlic,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: canned goods, laundry detergent.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: So I don't know why there's a watermelon. My wife
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: want a watermelon.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Like a circus act performed in the parking lot at
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: a Ralph's.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Or Trader Joe's or Vaughn's.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: These are the markets we have out here, and people stare,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: people smirk, and some people, you know, some pity me,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: some admire me. However, I will not bend. I am
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: a Taurus. I am stubborn. The astrology insider knows that
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: she knows I'm stubborn.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna break.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: I won't buy the bag knocking to do that, because
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: California can go pound sand and they'll charge itself ten
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: cents for the shovel. In a world of petty fees
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: and performative solutions. In air quotes, sometimes the greatest act
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: of rebellion is carrying your groceries with your bare hands,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: your unwashed, bare hands, standing tall and declaring that the
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: bureaucratic bag barons, these idiots can go away, no thanks.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I brought my own, Yes I did.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: I brought my own, or I didn't bring any, and
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to carry that stuff out.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And sometimes I have been told that.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: They always asked you want bags, and sometimes I'll say no,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: and they don't hear me because I talk kind of
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: quiet when I have headphones on, and they'll give me
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: a bag and I don't want the bag. Well, the
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: food's already in the bag. And every once in a
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: while they'll give me a freebie. It's like a drug
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: peddler giving out free samples to try to hook you on.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: And I have not even though I've been given bags.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: I didn't pay for the bag. They didn't add the
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: ten cent sale charge or surcharge on that didn't do it.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Didn't do it, and that's it. And so I always say,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I know I'm good. I don't need the bag. If
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: they give me the bag, I might take it. And
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: that is how you fight the bag tax tyranny. You
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: have to go old school Hollywood, like Charlie Chaplin walking
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: carrying a bunch of junk, or Steve Martin stumbling, or
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Catherine O'Hara sprinting through the airport. The silent majority will
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: rise again, I'm telling you, and they will carry their
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: groceries free of charge, free of charge until then.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And I say hell Aelujah, hallelujah.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: That's what I say. I enjoy the college football today.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: If you've already watched the college football or you're like
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Lucky Tony who will be listening to this sometime in
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: twenty thirty three, have it just a wonderful day. May
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: all your bets be winning ones. Make sure to watch
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: any versus the Penny. Still time to watch the Sunday
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Extravaganza on YouTube.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Great audience last week.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: We thank you guys for watching on demand, and we'll
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: catch you on the next edition.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: At the mail Bag, the mail Bag edition of the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Fifth Hour. We'll talk to you then by flation