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The Fifth Hour: Pastrami Queen · 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.
0:18
Speaker 1: Wow.
0:18
Speaker 2: The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
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Speaker 2: The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in.
0:29
Speaker 1: The air everywhere. The fifth Hour, the Saturday Special, is
0:36
Speaker 1: upon us as we are united yet again in the
0:39
Speaker 1: remote podcast studio and the bowels of the Malor Mansion
0:44
Speaker 1: for weekend fun. Today, by the way, the last Saturday
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Speaker 1: Pod for the month of May, the thirtieth day, the
0:52
Speaker 1: one hundred and fiftieth year or one hundred and fifteth
0:55
Speaker 1: day of the year. There are two hundred and fifteen
0:58
Speaker 1: days left on this podcast. We have the Pastramie Queen,
1:02
Speaker 1: It's not what you think and hippity hop and we'll
1:06
Speaker 1: put all those things together and we are going to
1:09
Speaker 1: do an amazing podcast. We're gonna have a grand old time.
1:15
Speaker 1: Well you'll be the judge of that. We begin though
1:18
Speaker 1: with a message, a public service announcement for every man
1:22
Speaker 1: woman and child. Watch out for the deli. Watch out.
1:27
Speaker 1: Those delis do the darnedest things they do. So I
1:31
Speaker 1: wanted to share this one with you. It actually had
1:34
Speaker 1: slipped through my mind last week and I was going
1:38
Speaker 1: to talk about it last weekend, and then I forgot
1:41
Speaker 1: about it, and then it came back to me this
1:45
Speaker 1: morning as I was thinking, like, what can I share
1:48
Speaker 1: with you the loyal minion of the Fifth Hour podcast,
1:51
Speaker 1: So settle in. It's Benny's story time on the Fifth
1:56
Speaker 1: Hour podcast. So I want to walk you through this.
2:00
Speaker 1: So there, I was a long long time ago, which
2:04
Speaker 1: was actually just a recent time, wandering around New York City. Yes,
2:08
Speaker 1: it is another Malard travelog tail that has never been
2:12
Speaker 1: told before. So I'm wandering around the Big Apple. Now.
2:17
Speaker 1: I'm not really a confused tourist. I'm not from there,
2:21
Speaker 1: but I did seem like a confused tourist because I
2:24
Speaker 1: had a very numb left foot. And if you missed
2:28
Speaker 1: the previous podcast because you were not listening, bad job
2:31
Speaker 1: by you. I'm not talking about a metaphorically numb left foot,
2:35
Speaker 1: like literally I can't feel the toes and the middle
2:40
Speaker 1: part of my left foot. As we mentioned in a
2:44
Speaker 1: previous episode of the show. So my clod Hoppers had
2:48
Speaker 1: betrayed me. I forgot to bring my walking shoes. Well
2:52
Speaker 1: I didn't even really forget to bring my walking shoes.
2:54
Speaker 1: We were in Boston, had some fan events, and so
2:58
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, we do these mile of
2:59
Speaker 1: meat greets. I want to look good, not that I
3:01
Speaker 1: ever really look good. And I have noticed no one
3:05
Speaker 1: ever cares about your shoes. Have you noticed that? Like
3:09
Speaker 1: you're like a real a hole if you're a shoe snob.
3:13
Speaker 1: Like in my experience, it's just the people I know.
3:16
Speaker 1: Possibly I've never had anyone say, well, those are really
3:19
Speaker 1: ugly shoes or those are really nice shoes. I've never
3:21
Speaker 1: had it. And I have friends of mine that collect
3:25
Speaker 1: those Air Jordans that they're into that that's the thing
3:29
Speaker 1: and good for them, and I'm not. I had an
3:32
Speaker 1: original pair of Air Jordan's when I was a kid,
3:35
Speaker 1: and you know what I did with them. I played basketball.
3:37
Speaker 1: I lived my life with those black and red Air Jordans,
3:42
Speaker 1: like the original Air Jordans, which I guess are worth
3:44
Speaker 1: a lot of money because kids like me just played
3:46
Speaker 1: basketball in them. So anyway, get So the point is
3:50
Speaker 1: that the shoes I chose were for looks, which was
3:55
Speaker 1: dumb because even in photos, no one's like, well, let
3:58
Speaker 1: me look at the shoes, share, I'm gonna get the
4:00
Speaker 1: out the magnifying glass. So I didn't bring my walking shoes,
4:04
Speaker 1: and I paid a price. And I'm telling these things
4:06
Speaker 1: were medieval punishment devices disguised as footwear. In tennis lingo,
4:13
Speaker 1: they call them unforced errors. Every step I took after
4:20
Speaker 1: about two and a half hours in Manhattan felt like
4:22
Speaker 1: my toes were sending tiny resignation letters to the rest
4:26
Speaker 1: of my body, like, hey, it's been fun, I can't run.
4:31
Speaker 1: I'm out, see you later, bye bye, like Dick and Dayton,
4:36
Speaker 1: just like that, I'm out. And yet I kept going
4:40
Speaker 1: because that's what you do when you're out of town
4:44
Speaker 1: and you're in a place you don't normally visit, and
4:46
Speaker 1: you want to enjoy the day. And if you've ever
4:49
Speaker 1: been to New York or you live there, you know
4:51
Speaker 1: that nobody stops, nothing slows down, at least not during
4:55
Speaker 1: the day. So if you're limping in New York, people
4:59
Speaker 1: simply f around you like you're a traffic hazard. And
5:04
Speaker 1: it's kind of like when you're you know you see
5:07
Speaker 1: a big thing of water, and you know, around a
5:10
Speaker 1: shopping cart in the middle of Costco, you're going to
5:12
Speaker 1: go around it. So anyway, we made our way up
5:15
Speaker 1: to the Upper east Side of Manhattan. The bougie elitist
5:21
Speaker 1: we're better than you Upper east Side. Ah. Yes, the
5:26
Speaker 1: Upper east Side is a different planet. There are cleaner streets,
5:31
Speaker 1: quiet blocks, fancy dogs, people wearing white pants, not worried
5:37
Speaker 1: about anything. And it's a reminder everywhere you go where
5:41
Speaker 1: things are tough. Me listen, New York City is not
5:43
Speaker 1: doing particularly great right now. It wasn't as bad as
5:46
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be. It's not wonderful.
5:48
Speaker 1: And yet you've got these little bubbles, in this case,
5:51
Speaker 1: a pretty big bubble, the Upper east Side, which is different.
5:54
Speaker 1: I see the same thing in California, Or you've got
5:56
Speaker 1: certain pockets in Beverly Hills or brand Would where it's
6:00
Speaker 1: just different and they don't deal with the stuff that
6:03
Speaker 1: the rest of the community has to deal with and
6:07
Speaker 1: they're buffered from all that. And the Upper east Side
6:10
Speaker 1: certainly qualifies in Manhattan. So just to describe if you've
6:14
Speaker 1: never been there, these are the parts of Manhattan where
6:19
Speaker 1: you know you don't hear sirens every twelve seconds. There
6:22
Speaker 1: are parts of all the boroughs where it's just NonStop
6:25
Speaker 1: sirens because someone's either getting getting arrested or going to
6:29
Speaker 1: the hospital, or need to go to the hospital and
6:31
Speaker 1: then be arrested. And the Upper east Side, you know
6:34
Speaker 1: what you hear, You hear cellos, you hear birds, you
6:37
Speaker 1: hear trust funds maturing as you're walking, and it sits
6:43
Speaker 1: right next to Central Park, and it feels less like
6:48
Speaker 1: New York City and more like a movie set where
6:51
Speaker 1: everyone's dermatologist cost way more than my mortgage, my car,
6:58
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And so, as I have pointed out
7:01
Speaker 1: those of you that have not heard some of these
7:03
Speaker 1: podcasts recently, my older brother was my toy guy. He's
7:07
Speaker 1: lived in New York longer than he lived in California
7:10
Speaker 1: when we were going up. And he's one of those
7:12
Speaker 1: New Yorkers who walks everywhere with this confidence that hey,
7:18
Speaker 1: I've seen it, I've done it, I've wandered everywhere. He's
7:22
Speaker 1: run the New York Marathon all that stuff. He's the
7:25
Speaker 1: kind of guy that you're walking along the street and
7:29
Speaker 1: he says, oh, yeah, see that building over there. He
7:30
Speaker 1: say yeh, yeh, yeh. That used to be a speakeasy
7:33
Speaker 1: back when alcohol was illegal and all that. And he
7:37
Speaker 1: just knows all these little fun, quirky facts about different places,
7:42
Speaker 1: and he keeps up on all that stuff, and he's
7:45
Speaker 1: doing this shtick and I'm just trying to make it
7:48
Speaker 1: through the day and my circulation and my left leg
7:51
Speaker 1: is not going particularly good, my foot because of the shoe.
7:54
Speaker 1: So the plan for the day sounded magical, right, magnificent.
8:00
Speaker 1: Chef's kiss, Chef's kiss. It was too magnificent. So my brothers,
8:07
Speaker 1: why don't we go to the Upper east Side. We'll
8:08
Speaker 1: go to the Met, the met where they have that
8:12
Speaker 1: galla thing every year. We'll get up Astronomi sandwiches. We'll
8:15
Speaker 1: eat lunch in Central Park overlooking a lake and a castle.
8:21
Speaker 1: A castle. There's a castle in Central Park. Now I
8:25
Speaker 1: didn't know this. I thought you had to travel to
8:29
Speaker 1: Europe for a castle, or Disneyland to see Cinderella's Castle,
8:36
Speaker 1: or some casinos that aren't doing very well in Las Vegas. However, No,
8:41
Speaker 1: there is an actual castle sitting right next to the
8:45
Speaker 1: Upper in the Upper east Side part of Manhattan, and
8:48
Speaker 1: it's just completely normal, hided hidden by trees and all
8:52
Speaker 1: that stuff, And so that was the plan. That was
8:56
Speaker 1: later so we visited the MET and and I'm a
9:00
Speaker 1: little afraid talking about this. I'm only gonna mention this
9:02
Speaker 1: on the podcast and not the radio show because guys
9:05
Speaker 1: like Justin and Cincinnati, who I don't think listen to
9:07
Speaker 1: the podcast, will bust my balls if they find out
9:10
Speaker 1: I went to the Met and it will kill me.
9:12
Speaker 1: So please keep that quiet. Do not let Justin and
9:14
Speaker 1: Cincinnati know that I went to the Met. So I'm
9:17
Speaker 1: going to lose a lot of street cred admitting this.
9:20
Speaker 1: That's why I'm limiting it to the podcast, which has
9:23
Speaker 1: a smaller, more loyal following than the radio show, which
9:27
Speaker 1: is broadcasting. You have to find the podcast. You have
9:30
Speaker 1: to go out of your way to listen to the podcast.
9:33
Speaker 1: The radio show you can still scramble on to when
9:36
Speaker 1: you're making a mad dash somewhere you turn on the radio,
9:39
Speaker 1: you might find it. So I willingly, I willingly spend
9:44
Speaker 1: time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If anyone grills
9:48
Speaker 1: me about that, I will point out I did that
9:50
Speaker 1: at the behest of my older brother, as a good brother,
9:53
Speaker 1: brotherly love. Not Philadelphia style. So yes, normally an overnight
9:59
Speaker 1: sports gas bag who despises all things that are in
10:02
Speaker 1: that realm in life. And here I am somebody who
10:07
Speaker 1: normally is ripping c J. Stroud at two in the
10:10
Speaker 1: morning looking at paintings, and I'm nodding thoughtfully. I'm faking
10:17
Speaker 1: it till I make it, pretending I understand the world
10:20
Speaker 1: of abstract art. And I saw one painting and I
10:25
Speaker 1: have no idea who did it. I didn't look at
10:28
Speaker 1: the fine print. However, I saw one painting that looked
10:32
Speaker 1: like somebody had spilled the can of soup, chunky soup
10:37
Speaker 1: on a canvas. And all these snobbish people, I should
10:43
Speaker 1: say all stoppers. There were a lot of tourists there,
10:45
Speaker 1: so it wasn't all stoppish. It was a lot of snobbish.
10:47
Speaker 1: Wasn't all stopper The crowd though, everyone around me is
10:52
Speaker 1: looking at this and the vibe, by God again, it
10:55
Speaker 1: looked like somebody just took went down to the grocery store,
10:58
Speaker 1: got a can of chunky soup and just poured it
11:01
Speaker 1: on a canvas and said, let's let that dry. We're good,
11:05
Speaker 1: And everyone around me is like, oh man, that's like
11:08
Speaker 1: cured polio. Wow, and our people are a different breed.
11:13
Speaker 1: They're intimidating. This is not like going to a walmart.
11:17
Speaker 1: This is not like going to a waffle house. This
11:21
Speaker 1: is a much different crowd. They these people stare at
11:24
Speaker 1: paintings silently. They'll put their hand on their chin, their
11:28
Speaker 1: their fingers on their chin, and nobody knows the rules.
11:33
Speaker 1: I don't know the rules, like how long are you
11:34
Speaker 1: supposed to look at this crap like it? Can you talk?
11:38
Speaker 1: You can't really talk. You can whisper. There's a lot
11:40
Speaker 1: of whispering. You know it's ten seconds? Is it thirty?
11:44
Speaker 1: Is it a minute?
11:45
Speaker 2: Like?
11:45
Speaker 1: What are you supposed to do? So I was trying
11:48
Speaker 1: to follow the people around me. You'll fake it till
11:51
Speaker 1: you make it. I got a little panicked, and I
11:53
Speaker 1: just kept saying, like, hey, interesting use of color. I
11:56
Speaker 1: wonder what kind of soup that was? No, I didn't
11:58
Speaker 1: say that part, like what kind of interesting use of color?
12:02
Speaker 1: Which I believe is the universal bailout phrase. If you're
12:06
Speaker 1: ever at a art museum and you're looking at abstract art,
12:11
Speaker 1: just be very quiet, whisper, put your fingers on your
12:15
Speaker 1: chin as you're looking, and then mumble interesting use of color,
12:22
Speaker 1: and that works pretty much every time. Pretty much. That's
12:25
Speaker 1: what they say. I should point out. Before we went
12:28
Speaker 1: to the museum, we decided to have lunch. As I said,
12:32
Speaker 1: lunch in the park. It really wasn't for me because
12:35
Speaker 1: I can fast for a long time. However, the people
12:38
Speaker 1: I was with do not do that, so we headed
12:41
Speaker 1: towards lunch. Now, normally, when I visit the Big Apple,
12:47
Speaker 1: I'm going pastrami, and everybody tells you to go to
12:54
Speaker 1: Katz's Deli. That's the mecha of pastrami. Since eighteen eighty eight,
13:04
Speaker 1: a legendary place historic Major League Baseball was officially formed.
13:10
Speaker 1: I playing baseball in like the eighteen seventies. However, major
13:13
Speaker 1: League Baseball was formed officially in nineteen oh one. This
13:18
Speaker 1: place had been opened for thirteen years Prior to that.
13:23
Speaker 1: They've been slicing pastrami since Grover Cleveland was president. Horse
13:28
Speaker 1: and Buggy era. The automobile did not become mainstream until
13:34
Speaker 1: like the nineteen twenties. This place has been around since
13:37
Speaker 1: modern plumbing, before modern plumbing, before the forward pass all
13:43
Speaker 1: of that, and it's iconic. I love it. I've been
13:47
Speaker 1: there many times. It's not the greatest deli because Langers
13:50
Speaker 1: is better in La Their pastrami is better. Cats is iconic,
13:54
Speaker 1: It's famous. I believe that's where Harry met Sally was.
13:59
Speaker 1: There was a scene in there and that table. They
14:03
Speaker 1: kept it exactly the same, so you can sit where
14:05
Speaker 1: they filmed that movie. And Anthony Bourdain, the late great
14:09
Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdain, loved it. Tourists love it. The line also
14:16
Speaker 1: happens to wrap around the building like people are waiting
14:19
Speaker 1: for concert tickets in nineteen seventy seven or something like that.
14:23
Speaker 1: And I wanted the pastromi at Katz. I was more
14:29
Speaker 1: than willing to go there. However, I didn't have the time.
14:31
Speaker 1: I didn't have the time. As you know, this was
14:33
Speaker 1: a quick trip. Came down from Boston for a couple
14:36
Speaker 1: of days, went back to Boston and that's it. And
14:40
Speaker 1: so didn't have a lot of time. So I'm not
14:41
Speaker 1: spending an hour and a half or two hours of
14:44
Speaker 1: my off time, vacation time, staring at the back of
14:49
Speaker 1: somebody's cargo shorts, futzing around on my phone playing scrabble
14:54
Speaker 1: while waiting for cured meat. I'm not doing it. So
14:57
Speaker 1: my brother says, hey, listen, let's let's go to the Queen.
15:02
Speaker 1: I said, what are you talking about, queen?
15:03
Speaker 2: What is that?
15:04
Speaker 1: Queen? Mary the band Queen? Like what, We're going to
15:08
Speaker 1: the Pastrami queen? All right, now, that's a name. I'd
15:12
Speaker 1: never heard of, the Pastrami queen. Have you heard of
15:14
Speaker 1: the Pastrami queen. I'm not from New York. I didn't
15:15
Speaker 1: know what the pastrami? What is the Pastrami queen? I
15:17
Speaker 1: don't know what that is? So I'm like, what is that?
15:20
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a little tired and like that. That's
15:23
Speaker 1: a name, all right, Pastrami queen doesn't really sound like
15:27
Speaker 1: a deli. It sounds like a wrestler from when I
15:31
Speaker 1: was a kid. W WF not WWE. When I was
15:34
Speaker 1: a kid, it was Worldwide World Wrestling Federation, not World
15:38
Speaker 1: Wrestling Entertainment, World Wrestling Federation back in the early days.
15:44
Speaker 1: And me and Gene Oakland coming down the aisle weighing
15:46
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty two pounds, the Pastrami queen, you
15:50
Speaker 1: know that something like that? And the place is on
15:54
Speaker 1: Lexington Avenue on the Upper east Side, as we've talked
15:59
Speaker 1: about here, a very interesting part of Manhattan historic area.
16:05
Speaker 1: I didn't know this at the time. I looked this
16:07
Speaker 1: up after one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood
16:12
Speaker 1: in the early days of Hollywood was Marilyn Monroe filmed
16:18
Speaker 1: over a subway great in front of a theater and
16:23
Speaker 1: the dress flew up, and there have been statues that
16:29
Speaker 1: have made of this posters. It's one of the iconic
16:32
Speaker 1: moments in cinema. And Marilyn Monroe, when she was filmed
16:36
Speaker 1: doing the famous subway Great scene with her dress flying,
16:40
Speaker 1: was on lex Lexington Avenue. It was a few blocks
16:43
Speaker 1: away this movie called The Seven Year Itch, which is
16:47
Speaker 1: part of Hollywood history, Americana history. It was Hollywood the
16:53
Speaker 1: whole deal. So anyway, Anthony boar Daine, I want to
16:55
Speaker 1: point this out again. So he called Pastromi Queen the
16:58
Speaker 1: real deal, and he gave some famous quote about when
17:03
Speaker 1: you're in New York, there's only two places to get Pastrami,
17:05
Speaker 1: and it's Katzes and the Postromi Queen. So that made
17:09
Speaker 1: me feel like this was gonna be okay, that I
17:13
Speaker 1: wasn't downgrading from not going to cats, that this was
17:16
Speaker 1: going to be fine. And so I'm like, okay, all right.
17:20
Speaker 1: If the late I loved Anthony Bourdine. I love the show.
17:23
Speaker 1: I didn't know him, and I thought if Anthony Bourdain,
17:25
Speaker 1: when he was in this mortal coil, approved of the
17:28
Speaker 1: postromi queen, I'm in, I'm in. And because when Anthony
17:32
Speaker 1: Bourdain talks about food, I listen. This guy treated sandwiches
17:36
Speaker 1: like a religion. And we went in. We walked in
17:40
Speaker 1: and there was no line, which is a wonderful thing,
17:44
Speaker 1: a great mitzvah, tremendous development. I immediately trusted that this
17:52
Speaker 1: place was going to be okay, this establishment was going
17:54
Speaker 1: to be fine. My brother approved it, Anthony Bourdain approved it.
17:58
Speaker 1: And more importantly, there were some very angry looking middle
18:01
Speaker 1: aged men behind the counter that look like their entire
18:04
Speaker 1: lives have been covered in pastrami. Every great deli has
18:09
Speaker 1: at least one of these dudes. And if you don't
18:12
Speaker 1: see one of these dudes behind the counter, it's not
18:14
Speaker 1: a great deli. The guy that looks really annoyed, like
18:19
Speaker 1: you interrupted his afternoon by ordering food, which he's so
18:25
Speaker 1: tired of and so disgusted with, and he serves so
18:28
Speaker 1: many times he doesn't want to be bothered. To me,
18:30
Speaker 1: that's authentic, right, That is authenticity is what that is,
18:35
Speaker 1: so we ordered. My older brother went first because he's older,
18:40
Speaker 1: very smooth operation. I ordered my food, no problem, and
18:47
Speaker 1: then my wife ordered, and suddenly that old, angry looking
18:54
Speaker 1: dude there was tension. Who goofed. I've got to know.
19:00
Speaker 1: Wife asks for a pastrami sandwich. She orders the pastrami
19:03
Speaker 1: sandwich with Swiss cheese and Russian dressing. That's the way
19:07
Speaker 1: she likes her pastrami sandwich. She likes a slice of
19:10
Speaker 1: Swiss cheese melted and Russian dressing. So to normal civilians,
19:17
Speaker 1: that sounds perfectly harmless, benign, delicious even And I've had
19:22
Speaker 1: sandwiches like that. Here's the issue. There's a sign on
19:29
Speaker 1: the window of the Pastrami Queen and out in front
19:32
Speaker 1: that says, welcome to the Pastrami Queen, Kosher. And this
19:38
Speaker 1: is where my Jewish heritage briefly re enters the chat
19:41
Speaker 1: right now, So listen, I am not exactly a gold
19:46
Speaker 1: standard member of the discipline of religion. I am certainly
19:52
Speaker 1: not that I had a bar mitzvah when I became
19:56
Speaker 1: a man at thirteen. I love Yiddish, and I know
20:00
Speaker 1: I know more than enough to survive the rare and
20:02
Speaker 1: appropriate family gathers, and I certainly throw around my share
20:07
Speaker 1: of words like musugarna, hutzpah, bupkiss, all those things. I
20:13
Speaker 1: enjoy matzabal soup. It's my favorite soup next to French onion.
20:17
Speaker 1: I love manzabal soup. Culturally, I am Jewish, absolutely spiritually disciplined.
20:25
Speaker 1: You know, as I was telling one of our friends
20:27
Speaker 1: in Worcester, and he agreed, as a fellow member of
20:30
Speaker 1: the tribe, that we pick and choose certain things. Now, meanwhile,
20:34
Speaker 1: my wife, as my old school grandfather from Springfield, mass
20:41
Speaker 1: would have said, ben your wife or he was Benjamin,
20:46
Speaker 1: your wife is a shiksa. A shiksa, I said, what
20:49
Speaker 1: is that? That means a woman who is not part
20:52
Speaker 1: of the tribe. He's a wonderful person. It's a lovely woman. However,
20:57
Speaker 1: this was where her shiksa came out. She had a
21:02
Speaker 1: told rain Fat. Now the man behind the counter, the
21:05
Speaker 1: very angry, middle aged man maybe older than that, froze
21:11
Speaker 1: at one point, not visibly. These Deli guys are professional
21:15
Speaker 1: internally though, He's like, man, I don't want to be here.
21:18
Speaker 1: You're bothering me. And now you have the gall the
21:24
Speaker 1: hutzpah to order something I cannot make I can't do it.
21:31
Speaker 1: So there was definitely a break in the pastrami force field.
21:36
Speaker 1: There was a disturbance because asking for Swiss cheese at
21:41
Speaker 1: a kosher deli is like walking into a vegan restaurant
21:45
Speaker 1: in Santa Monica and asking, Hey, can I get a
21:49
Speaker 1: plate of brisket? Yo, you don't have you don't have Okay?
21:53
Speaker 1: Can I get a Porterhouse? Well we don't have port
21:56
Speaker 1: How about a ribbi? No, we don't have ribbi, dummy,
21:59
Speaker 1: Or it's another naws. You'd be like, it's like going
22:01
Speaker 1: to some weekend wine festival and saying, can I get
22:04
Speaker 1: a bud light? Well, no, we don't do that, there's
22:07
Speaker 1: no bud light. Okay, I'll take a course. There's no
22:10
Speaker 1: course light. No, no, dummy. Or it's like showing up
22:15
Speaker 1: at the met with a leaf blower. It's like what
22:19
Speaker 1: are you doing? It's the wrong venue. So for a
22:22
Speaker 1: split second, I thought, well, we're gonna get thrown out.
22:24
Speaker 1: They're not gonna make my sandwich. I'm gonna get thrown
22:27
Speaker 1: out on the street here on Lexington Avenue. We're gonna
22:29
Speaker 1: have to go find somewhere else to eat. And so
22:31
Speaker 1: I'm like in my head, I'm like, oh, let's go
22:33
Speaker 1: to apology mode, you know, the whole thing and refresher course,
22:38
Speaker 1: you know all that. Anyway, it turned out, no harm,
22:41
Speaker 1: no file. The deli guy gave us that classic death stare,
22:44
Speaker 1: like a Bellacheckian death stair. O. This is the New
22:47
Speaker 1: York version. It's the one that says, I've seen worse
22:51
Speaker 1: than this, but not by much. Now. Thankfully the guy
22:57
Speaker 1: let us have our food, my wife without the cheese.
23:01
Speaker 1: Disaster was avoided. And honestly, that's part of the magic
23:06
Speaker 1: of traveling to different places. Only in New York it happens.
23:10
Speaker 1: It seems to happen more in that city than anywhere
23:12
Speaker 1: else I've been, where these tiny misunderstandings become full theatrical productions.
23:18
Speaker 1: Everything has drama, as I learned the famous line, everything
23:23
Speaker 1: has drama. Even pancakes can be dramatic if you make
23:27
Speaker 1: them the right way, And so even buying lunch it
23:31
Speaker 1: felt like some kind of negotiation with the pastrami queen.
23:36
Speaker 1: There was an exchange that took place, so we grabbed
23:38
Speaker 1: the sandwiches, and of course didn't stay there to eat.
23:41
Speaker 1: We headed into Central Park, and I gotta tell you
23:45
Speaker 1: something Anthony Bourdain was right. My wife did not enjoy
23:49
Speaker 1: the Pastrami Queen as much as I did. I think
23:51
Speaker 1: the experience of her ordering caused her to not like
23:54
Speaker 1: the food. Sometimes your body, there's a quote by Anthony
23:58
Speaker 1: bournanin that sometimes your body is not a temple. I
24:02
Speaker 1: think he said it's not a temple, it's an amusement park,
24:05
Speaker 1: and something like that. So on this particular sunny afternoon,
24:11
Speaker 1: sitting near a small lake in Central Park with a
24:15
Speaker 1: castle off to the left, sitting on some steps with
24:20
Speaker 1: a delicious pastromi sandwich on hand, approved by Anthony Bourdain,
24:24
Speaker 1: a very numb left foot, sore knee, my right knee
24:30
Speaker 1: still sore from an old baseball injury, and enough sodium
24:33
Speaker 1: in my bloodstream too, I think preserve a mummy that
24:36
Speaker 1: is in the met I thought, well, this is one
24:38
Speaker 1: of those moments in life. This is pretty good, Like
24:41
Speaker 1: this is really a good day. You got to remember
24:44
Speaker 1: the good days because you have a lot of bad
24:46
Speaker 1: days and a lot of blad days and mid days.
24:48
Speaker 1: This is a good day. It's gonna file that a way,
24:51
Speaker 1: and I'm doing that now here on the podcast. Now. Meanwhile,
24:55
Speaker 1: we do have it I want to mention this. It's
24:58
Speaker 1: a little marketing. The podcast asked exclusive, Now this is
25:01
Speaker 1: where the real pe ones. If you missed the announcement
25:04
Speaker 1: this past week on the radio show the NFL book,
25:08
Speaker 1: Them is back, baby, which means what does that mean?
25:11
Speaker 1: That means civilization, as shaky as it already was, has
25:16
Speaker 1: officially taken another unnecessary risk. So, as you may or
25:22
Speaker 1: may not know, depending on how long you've listened to
25:24
Speaker 1: the show, some of you have come out of the shadows.
25:26
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say like, can't close the deal Neil
25:28
Speaker 1: and Corbyn some others though, so we had mothballed this
25:34
Speaker 1: bit the last couple of years out of the most
25:37
Speaker 1: annoying phrase, an abundance of caution. You see, back when
25:42
Speaker 1: the world was treating every single joke like it was
25:47
Speaker 1: a federal offense, and every sports take like testimony before Congress,
25:53
Speaker 1: it seemed wise to put the old girl into storage.
25:59
Speaker 1: I'm a victim, had the bully pulpit, and I was
26:03
Speaker 1: not raised like that. The victimhood thing was big and
26:06
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, this person was a victim because somebody
26:09
Speaker 1: did so and so. On the radio. I was like,
26:11
Speaker 1: I don't want to be part of that. So somewhere
26:13
Speaker 1: between pandemics, panic attacks and social media mobs run by
26:21
Speaker 1: the bots and the algorithm, the armed crowd with pitchforks
26:26
Speaker 1: and Wi Fi, the NFL book them quietly disappeared into
26:30
Speaker 1: the radio Witness Protection program, and honestly, I figure that
26:37
Speaker 1: was probably the end of it. It's been a couple
26:38
Speaker 1: of years and we'll just move on. It was a
26:42
Speaker 1: good bit. We had a lot of fun with it.
26:44
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite things that we've ever done
26:46
Speaker 1: on the radio show. That's all. Then it happened. What
26:53
Speaker 1: is it that would be when Packer's running back. Josh Jacobs,
26:56
Speaker 1: the team captain, got himself arrested at the beginning of
27:00
Speaker 1: the week for some really bad domestic violence charge in Wisconsin.
27:06
Speaker 1: Of course, we'll see how this plays out and the
27:10
Speaker 1: court system and what if anything pops up or something
27:12
Speaker 1: pops back up, and so anyway, that's not the point.
27:16
Speaker 1: I'm not going to adjudicate that case or what happened
27:19
Speaker 1: or what didn't happen. So suddenly my phone, when this
27:23
Speaker 1: came out, I was sleeping, I get all these text
27:24
Speaker 1: messages and as I pointed out, when this happens and
27:27
Speaker 1: I'm sleeping, I think, oh, somebody must have died. Who died?
27:31
Speaker 1: And so my phone's lightened up with text messages and
27:33
Speaker 1: like a slot machine at Yamavah Casino here in SoCal
27:37
Speaker 1: and San Bernardino, like just a lot, a lot of messages, right,
27:41
Speaker 1: a lot of messages. And I'm talking about people I
27:45
Speaker 1: knew when I was a radio reporter work at newspapers,
27:48
Speaker 1: other radio people, TV people, guys that work at websites,
27:52
Speaker 1: people that don't work at any of those jobs. Casual listeners, degenerates,
27:55
Speaker 1: people that have my number for no reason at all.
27:58
Speaker 1: Functional adults pretend to be degenerates, all of them, every
28:03
Speaker 1: single one of them, asking the same thing, Hey Ben,
28:05
Speaker 1: who had green Bay in the book?
28:07
Speaker 2: Them?
28:08
Speaker 1: And then I realized something very important at that moment,
28:11
Speaker 1: as I was trying to get my bearings under me
28:14
Speaker 1: to start the day, that these people love the bed
28:19
Speaker 1: and America doesn't heal through unity. America heals through dumb
28:23
Speaker 1: radio bits. So, by popular demand, the powers vested in
28:28
Speaker 1: me by sitting behind the microphones of Fox Sports Radio,
28:32
Speaker 1: the NFL BOOKAM returns now. It's not going to return
28:36
Speaker 1: tomorrow night, Sunday and Monday, it's going to be Monday
28:38
Speaker 1: in a Tuesday because Coop's not going to be there
28:40
Speaker 1: on Sunday and Monday. So Monday into Tuesday on the
28:45
Speaker 1: Ben Mather Show, like an aging rock band reunited, and
28:50
Speaker 1: it feels so good for one more cash grab tour.
28:53
Speaker 1: At least you can expect this. It's gonna be all thought. Well,
28:58
Speaker 1: there'll be fewer pyrotechnics and possibly some misdemeanor charges and
29:02
Speaker 1: all that. We hope that nobody gets arrested. I must
29:05
Speaker 1: point this out as a disclaimer. We do not want
29:08
Speaker 1: anyone to get arrested. We want everyone to walk the
29:10
Speaker 1: line and we'd love for that to be the case. However,
29:15
Speaker 1: if somebody does get arrested, we activate the NFL book
29:19
Speaker 1: them prime time arrest season. It's very late in the game.
29:23
Speaker 1: We normally would do this right after the Super Bowl.
29:26
Speaker 1: We'd wait about a week or two weeks and then
29:28
Speaker 1: do the NFL book them. It's very late in the
29:30
Speaker 1: game as we're going to do this in early June. However,
29:35
Speaker 1: this is prime real estate. I'm telling you, this is
29:39
Speaker 1: where it's at for guys to get in trouble. They
29:42
Speaker 1: got a lot of downtime between now and mid July
29:46
Speaker 1: everyone goes on vacation, the coaches, the executives, the players,
29:50
Speaker 1: all that. So keep that in mind. And when you're away,
29:54
Speaker 1: you're having those alcohol fueled slushies and you're making bad
29:58
Speaker 1: decisions and all that. Now, I should point out, because
30:01
Speaker 1: of the late date, we are modernizing the operation the
30:07
Speaker 1: old system, which I didn't think was that bad. Guys
30:12
Speaker 1: like Coop bitch about it. Oh, it's complicated. That's not complicated, right,
30:18
Speaker 1: You guys make a conspiracy theory out of everything. Living
30:22
Speaker 1: in your mother's basement. You're accusing us of rigging the
30:26
Speaker 1: NFL book them, So fine, uh you want it that way.
30:30
Speaker 1: So now we are doing the NBA draft lottery style
30:35
Speaker 1: NFL book them, which has never been done here. Because
30:38
Speaker 1: nothing screams integrity quite like a giant ping pong ball
30:42
Speaker 1: bouncing around in a plastic bingo cage. That that's where
30:47
Speaker 1: it's at. So yes, we are bringing in the Mallor Hopper.
30:53
Speaker 1: The malor Hopper, the magical keeper of the ping pong
30:58
Speaker 1: balls or go balls, a device that looks like it
31:03
Speaker 1: was stolen from a church raffle night in suburban Detroit
31:08
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven and that's what we're going with
31:11
Speaker 1: hip anie hop. Bring back the Sugar Hill Gang. I said,
31:15
Speaker 1: a hip hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip
31:20
Speaker 1: hip hop, and you don't stop the rocket. Did I
31:24
Speaker 1: get that right? No, that's a that's a that song
31:28
Speaker 1: I think goes back to the seventies. Anyway. With thirty
31:31
Speaker 1: two balls, that's a lot of balls, said, demand one
31:36
Speaker 1: for every NFL team. Alphabetical order by team. That will
31:42
Speaker 1: assign a number to each team. Everyone will get the
31:47
Speaker 1: big board, not unless Terry in England a big board.
31:50
Speaker 1: So alphabetical order by team name associated with the number.
31:55
Speaker 1: No funny business. Although I should point out if the
31:57
Speaker 1: Dallas Cowboys somehow end up winning six straight drawings, I
32:01
Speaker 1: reserve the right to become suspicious. Of course, we don't
32:04
Speaker 1: think that'll happen, because we'll take the balls out. That
32:07
Speaker 1: won't be possible. So years ago, when I was in
32:11
Speaker 1: love with the NBA Draft and I had not realized
32:14
Speaker 1: the skullduggery involved in it, I used to watch the
32:17
Speaker 1: NBA Draft Lottery every year, and the NBA Draft Lottery
32:20
Speaker 1: used to brag about the law firm of Ernst and Young,
32:24
Speaker 1: who oversaw the process Ernst and young accountants standing around
32:28
Speaker 1: like nuclear inspectors, making sure the Knickerbockers didn't magically land
32:33
Speaker 1: Patrick Ewing again. They'd lock everybody into a secret room,
32:38
Speaker 1: keep the envelopes hidden, act like they were launching military
32:41
Speaker 1: satellites or they had the nuclear codes. And we are.
32:46
Speaker 1: We're skipping all that. It's no secrecy here. We're doing
32:50
Speaker 1: it live. Let's do it live. We'll do it live
32:54
Speaker 1: on the radio, yes Monday and Tuesday. If there's one
32:59
Speaker 1: thing over sports talk has always believed in, it's transparency
33:03
Speaker 1: mixed with complete chaos unless we just like the chaos.
33:07
Speaker 1: So the participants this year, myself coop a loop Loraina
33:12
Speaker 1: from the Lorraina Theater on Ventoula Boulevard in Sherman Oaks,
33:15
Speaker 1: and what appears to be we think Marcel and Brooklyn.
33:19
Speaker 1: Although getting a hold of Marcell could be tough. We
33:21
Speaker 1: may have to bring in somebody from the bullpen, so
33:23
Speaker 1: stay tuned. We assume Marcel can separate himself from the
33:27
Speaker 1: weather reports the food takes long enough to participate. Now,
33:32
Speaker 1: the beauty of the NFL Book has always been the
33:35
Speaker 1: absolute magic of the fact you cannot scout. You can
33:42
Speaker 1: go by what has happened in years past? Rosters turnover,
33:47
Speaker 1: things change, Teams go years without any arrest, other teams
33:50
Speaker 1: all of a sudden pop up. This is not like
33:54
Speaker 1: any other fantasy football game. It's for people who fantasy
33:58
Speaker 1: football's for a different crowd. I used to play fantasy football, right.
34:01
Speaker 1: This is not about target share, it's not about any
34:05
Speaker 1: of that stuff. Keep the analytics away, Keep the analytics
34:09
Speaker 1: boogeyman away. Now this is the blind leading the blind.
34:13
Speaker 1: Everybody gets eight random teams. Do the math four divided
34:17
Speaker 1: by eight. You don't pick them, the hopper does. That's it.
34:22
Speaker 1: So you inherit them like some cursed time share your
34:28
Speaker 1: dad bought back in the eighties that they still happen
34:30
Speaker 1: to own part of in Florida, like that whole thing.
34:34
Speaker 1: So one minute you're feeling great because you drew Kansas
34:38
Speaker 1: City or I guess this case, Green Bay. The next
34:41
Speaker 1: minute you realize, oh, man, I also got the Jets,
34:44
Speaker 1: the Browns, whatever the Colts found abandoned behind a Bucky's
34:50
Speaker 1: and put on the roster. And that's the beauty of this.
34:55
Speaker 1: And unlike some professional sports leagues, there really is no
35:00
Speaker 1: fixing possible. Like I know, people say, every lottery is rigged,
35:06
Speaker 1: and I had somebody explain to me how the ewing
35:08
Speaker 1: lottery work with frozen envelopes. They've been talk about magnetic balls,
35:13
Speaker 1: shadowy league executives smoking cigars while deciding which market would
35:19
Speaker 1: help the teller gieneratings. Of course, the NBA has gone
35:21
Speaker 1: so far away from that. They put Wemby and San Antonio.
35:24
Speaker 1: That didn't seem to go very well some of these
35:27
Speaker 1: other guys. Anyway, there isn't enough money in it for
35:30
Speaker 1: this to be rigged. There's no money in it. So
35:32
Speaker 1: if there were, Coop would not be would not be
35:37
Speaker 1: going nutso every week, and you know with the vending
35:40
Speaker 1: machine and all the other stuff there. If we were
35:42
Speaker 1: making real money, the things that we do would not
35:47
Speaker 1: be taking place, like me arguing with airline employees about
35:51
Speaker 1: baggage fees or rental car employees about the add on fees. Still,
35:55
Speaker 1: I am excited. I am genuinely excited the NFL book.
35:59
Speaker 1: I know it's Saturday, you have to get through tomorrow
36:01
Speaker 1: and the rest of the today and tomorrow and then
36:03
Speaker 1: on Monday night, the NFL book is coming back. It's
36:06
Speaker 1: like an old friend. It represents something very important. It's
36:10
Speaker 1: an original bit that we came up with. It's one
36:13
Speaker 1: of those ridiculous radio traditions that reminds people you're supposed
36:20
Speaker 1: to have fun. It's just talk radio overnight, it's sports.
36:25
Speaker 1: It's dumb fun. Life is way too short, way too short.
36:31
Speaker 1: You're here and gone in a flash, and the days
36:34
Speaker 1: are long, the years are quick. So this is the
36:38
Speaker 1: kind of fun where grown adults who have insomnia or
36:42
Speaker 1: driving trucks, working whatever you're doing overnight, and you're awake
36:48
Speaker 1: at three in the morning or whenever, and you're arguing
36:53
Speaker 1: about whether getting arrested outside a nightclub counts as questionable
36:58
Speaker 1: or doubtful, and and what are the points if the
37:02
Speaker 1: charges do not stick? It's the NFL book them, it's
37:06
Speaker 1: not the NFL convictim. And honestly, in a world permanently
37:10
Speaker 1: stuck between panic and absurdity, it really does feel oddly comforting.
37:17
Speaker 1: So again, fire up the hopper, Let the ping pong
37:21
Speaker 1: balls or the bingo balls spin around, and may God
37:25
Speaker 1: have mercy to whichever one of us ends up drawing.
37:30
Speaker 1: The Cincinnati Bengals they used to dominate this, although they
37:34
Speaker 1: haven't really done much in recent years on that we
37:37
Speaker 1: will get out. We'll have the mail bag tomorrow. Robbie
37:41
Speaker 1: the Mariner fan is scheduled to join us on the
37:43
Speaker 1: mail bag tomorrow. So have a great rest of your
37:48
Speaker 1: Saturday and fox shizzle. As Dick and Dayton would say,
37:52
Speaker 1: actually Dick and Dayton would say again, he would say
37:55
Speaker 1: bye bye. That's how he would do that, So bye bye,