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The Fifth Hour: Benny Burrito Drama · 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: It's a clearinghouse of hot takes. Break free for something special.
0:22
Speaker 2: The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
0:28
Speaker 1: In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben
0:34
Speaker 1: Mallor and you, we are together again. It is a Saturday.
0:38
Speaker 1: The Audio Sweatshop does not close. We are open every
0:44
Speaker 1: single day, every single day. On this edition of The
0:48
Speaker 1: Fifth Hour, the Saturday Special, We've got the Clapper and
0:52
Speaker 1: Fear Factor. The Clapper and Fear Factor, we begin, Actually,
0:58
Speaker 1: I don't even want to begin with that. I want
1:00
Speaker 1: to begin with the NBA, which is tonight. Is this
1:02
Speaker 1: the last game of the NBA Finals as they will
1:07
Speaker 1: resume activities on this thirteenth day of June. Here tonight,
1:11
Speaker 1: San Antonio the home team, after absolutely gagging. There's got
1:16
Speaker 1: to be something higher than the vomit comet, the Duke
1:19
Speaker 1: of puke Wemby and the San Antonio Spurs and his
1:22
Speaker 1: partner in crime, Darren Fox. Now, I looked at the
1:26
Speaker 1: gambling numbers and the last numbers I saw as of
1:30
Speaker 1: last night, as of Friday night, the Spurs were favored
1:35
Speaker 1: on DraftKings. I think it was like five five and
1:38
Speaker 1: a half points, something like that. And so then what
1:41
Speaker 1: I did is I looked at the gambling money, like
1:43
Speaker 1: the percentage of money the public bet versus the wise guys,
1:48
Speaker 1: the professional gamblers, and the public is all over all over.
1:53
Speaker 1: The Knicks say this is over. The next are guaranteed
1:56
Speaker 1: to win, and it certainly looks that way based on
1:59
Speaker 1: the body language. I mean, what a steaming pile of
2:03
Speaker 1: you know what the Spurs played like. And at the
2:06
Speaker 1: end I mentioned this. I did a monologue about that
2:08
Speaker 1: game back what was it Wednesday? And to Thursday, and
2:12
Speaker 1: we pointed out that I saw I forget who it was,
2:15
Speaker 1: and I wish I had jotted down their number. The
2:17
Speaker 1: surrender cobra. I saw the surrender cobra, which is normally
2:22
Speaker 1: something you see from fans. When you see it from
2:24
Speaker 1: a player on the team, it makes you go hmm,
2:28
Speaker 1: makes you go home. Anyway, the Spurs favored at home
2:33
Speaker 1: the public and the wise guy's a little slight lean
2:35
Speaker 1: more toward the public, towards the public over the Knicks.
2:39
Speaker 1: And how many celebrities do you think Taylor Swift's going
2:41
Speaker 1: to show up to San Antonio? No, that's not a
2:43
Speaker 1: big enough location, right, she can't go to San Antonio.
2:46
Speaker 1: Spike Lee already had a couple of joyous moments the
2:50
Speaker 1: other night, and I think the Knicks already celebrate. How
2:53
Speaker 1: are they going to? Are the fans? I don't know
2:54
Speaker 1: about the players. The fans celebrated so much the other night,
2:58
Speaker 1: it were still set up for a tres choked up Now.
3:00
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to happen. The way the
3:03
Speaker 1: Spurs have played and performed and made a bunch of
3:07
Speaker 1: bonehead plays in this NBA Finals, double digit leads in
3:11
Speaker 1: every game. They definitely blew two two of the games
3:15
Speaker 1: they've lost. Now, you can say the first game, that opener,
3:18
Speaker 1: when the Knicks scored the final eleven points, said, okay, fine,
3:21
Speaker 1: the Knicks were better down the stretch, and you give
3:24
Speaker 1: them credit. However, Wemby in Game two missing the wide
3:28
Speaker 1: open shot and that would have won the game for
3:32
Speaker 1: San Antonio, and then the game obviously the night in
3:34
Speaker 1: New York where it was twenty nine point lead. Never
3:38
Speaker 1: before had a team choked as much as the San
3:42
Speaker 1: Antonio Spurs choked in that game. Now, meanwhile, the clapper.
3:49
Speaker 1: So my mind is wired in an odd ways. I
3:54
Speaker 1: was watching the people go crazy, all the one percenters,
3:56
Speaker 1: all the celebrity fans of the Knicks out there, Ben
4:00
Speaker 1: Stiller and Jerry Seinfeld and all these Bandwagon fans like
4:05
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift and all that, just having a fine, fine time, right,
4:09
Speaker 1: just having a great time. And the Nick fans rhythmically
4:12
Speaker 1: chanting from Nixon four to yelling at the referees to
4:17
Speaker 1: Nicks Nixon five, you know that old thing. And just
4:23
Speaker 1: the whole clapping process, the history of clapping, like the
4:26
Speaker 1: evolutionary origins of the clap, clap on, clap, off the clapper,
4:32
Speaker 1: which was a great infomercial back in the day. And
4:36
Speaker 1: so the Science Commune I fell down a rabbit hole.
4:40
Speaker 1: And the belief among those that have actually paid attention.
4:43
Speaker 1: You imagine going to college, becoming a person that studies
4:48
Speaker 1: life and humanity and you're like, my, specially he's gonna
4:51
Speaker 1: be on clapping, clapping? What is that?
4:54
Speaker 2: So?
4:54
Speaker 1: Anyway, the clapping they say dates back to prehistoric, are
4:57
Speaker 1: prehistoric brothers and sisters, ancestors, long before language, before people
5:04
Speaker 1: didn't know how to talk because there was no language.
5:06
Speaker 1: And early human beings, the belief among the science people
5:10
Speaker 1: is they clapped loudly to catch attention of your fellow
5:14
Speaker 1: human being. Also, if you wanted to signal I'm a
5:18
Speaker 1: little uneasy here, this is not a great situation and
5:22
Speaker 1: you're a little nervous, you could clap. Also as a
5:26
Speaker 1: predator to try to intimidate your fellow neanderthal. Back in
5:31
Speaker 1: the early days, you could your rival or a predator,
5:35
Speaker 1: you could clap. You could also similar to like waving hands,
5:41
Speaker 1: you can draw attention from people. So it's kind of
5:45
Speaker 1: obvious stuff with the clap, and it is one of
5:48
Speaker 1: those things that's considered universal among all humans, which again
5:54
Speaker 1: you say, well, it's just kind of a basic thing.
5:56
Speaker 1: There nearly every culture that has been examined in the
6:02
Speaker 1: history of time, and every known culture uses some form
6:05
Speaker 1: of clapping for communication. And the psychologists say there's different types.
6:12
Speaker 1: There's I believe four different types of clapping. Yeah, four motivational.
6:21
Speaker 1: That's the one we are dealing with here with sports,
6:23
Speaker 1: right you're trying to motivate the players on the court
6:26
Speaker 1: or the field or whatever. So you're clapping. You're trying
6:28
Speaker 1: to encourage them, which is partly the reason that I
6:31
Speaker 1: fell into this. Then there's the rhythmic clapping, which I love,
6:37
Speaker 1: which is not as good as rhythmic chanting. But the
6:39
Speaker 1: rhythmic clapping is awesome. You feel it in your bones.
6:43
Speaker 1: You're like, I liked it. This is great, right, And
6:46
Speaker 1: so if you go to a concert, you do the
6:50
Speaker 1: rhythmic clapping and all that. And then there's also after
6:55
Speaker 1: somebody speaks, right the formal event dinner speech. You're at
6:59
Speaker 1: a word function and the keynote speaker gets up there,
7:02
Speaker 1: you're supposed to clap. That's the proper protocol. And also
7:06
Speaker 1: just in general, they say showing gratitude or admiration for
7:10
Speaker 1: a job well done. So that is the human universal
7:16
Speaker 1: activity of clapping. And there's more. But wait, there's more.
7:22
Speaker 1: There are biblical references. It's in the Bible. There's biblical
7:27
Speaker 1: references here clapping as celebration. It's in the Bible from
7:32
Speaker 1: around the sixth century BCE. They even say that the
7:38
Speaker 1: ancient Greeks, way back they often stamped feet for approval, right,
7:46
Speaker 1: And they'd also clap, so they'd hop up and down,
7:50
Speaker 1: banging their feet, and they'd clap rowdy, not the mascot rowdy,
7:55
Speaker 1: but just rowdy. And the Romans, not only the Greeks,
7:58
Speaker 1: the Romans used applaw. They had variations like finger snapping
8:04
Speaker 1: for kind of a milder like you were good, you
8:07
Speaker 1: weren't that good, so we're not going to give you
8:10
Speaker 1: the full clap, We're gonna snap our fingers. And then well,
8:14
Speaker 1: also they waved handkerchiefs and togas if they really really
8:20
Speaker 1: like something, those wild Romans, they just would wave the toga.
8:25
Speaker 1: Weren't they wearing the toga at the time, So I
8:30
Speaker 1: don't know anyway, just applause and celebration and all that.
8:35
Speaker 1: And then over time the behavior changed, they estimated according
8:41
Speaker 1: to I was reading this long story about this, which
8:45
Speaker 1: I didn't even know was a thing that there's actually
8:48
Speaker 1: you can just google it and there's a bunch of
8:50
Speaker 1: things that come up. But in the eighteenth slash nineteenth centuries,
8:54
Speaker 1: the Science World says it was common to applaud a
8:59
Speaker 1: a me performance right mid performance. Mozart noted enthusiastic mid
9:08
Speaker 1: piece clapping, meaning that right in the middle of the show,
9:14
Speaker 1: you go crazy, right you're you're all that's great. It
9:18
Speaker 1: would be the equivalent of randomly in an NFL game,
9:22
Speaker 1: it's the middle of the third quarter and your team's
9:27
Speaker 1: driving down the field and you just go gaga. You
9:31
Speaker 1: just go crazy. You go crazy, and you're like, that's
9:35
Speaker 1: what of course today, if you do that, that is
9:39
Speaker 1: that is frowned upon. It's a bad job by you.
9:42
Speaker 1: What are you doing? You can't do that, Shame on you.
9:48
Speaker 1: And uh So the story also they go into some detail.
9:53
Speaker 1: They don't know the exact prehistoric timeline. It's all just spitballing.
9:58
Speaker 1: It's all just throwing spaghetti against the wall and all that.
10:03
Speaker 1: Again the point, it's just this instinctive, animalistic thing that's
10:09
Speaker 1: deeply rooted in who we are. So there you go.
10:13
Speaker 1: That's pretty much everything I learned about clapping. I know
10:17
Speaker 1: nothing else. Next week we'll have to study booing and
10:22
Speaker 1: the history of the boo. I feel like we've done
10:25
Speaker 1: some of that on this podcast over the years, we've
10:28
Speaker 1: gone down boo road. However, we haven't done it a
10:32
Speaker 1: long time. This podcast has been off for like seven
10:34
Speaker 1: years now. That's a fair amount of time. That's a
10:39
Speaker 1: good amount. We have a good archive here as my
10:41
Speaker 1: guy Lucky Tony in the Bay Area has gone through
10:44
Speaker 1: some of those old episodes of this show. We're on
10:47
Speaker 1: our third I think we're on our third different podcast
10:51
Speaker 1: partner we had back for a long time. We had
10:56
Speaker 1: Danny Well, we had Danny g that was the most
10:58
Speaker 1: recent and before him, Gagone David Gascon who retired to Florida.
11:04
Speaker 1: He's doing really well. He's playing some shuffle board and
11:07
Speaker 1: a lot of loves cards, loves playing cards in the
11:10
Speaker 1: park and painting. So things are going well there for
11:14
Speaker 1: gag On as he's retired there in Florida. And now
11:18
Speaker 1: we have Bri and my woman Brie there, she's the
11:22
Speaker 1: podcast partner here and very busy. We got to get
11:25
Speaker 1: her on the mail bag. One of these weeks we're
11:28
Speaker 1: gonna get Bri on the mail bag. So anyway, moving
11:31
Speaker 1: on from that, we now go to the Life of Malor.
11:36
Speaker 1: Does it get any better than the Life of Malor? Yes,
11:39
Speaker 1: it does a lot better, a lot better. So I
11:45
Speaker 1: spend I was doing some inventory the other day on
11:48
Speaker 1: like what do I do with my life? Most of
11:50
Speaker 1: my life is dedicated to the radio show and putting
11:54
Speaker 1: the show together. And I produce the show, and I
11:57
Speaker 1: do the monologues and all that stuff that takes up
12:00
Speaker 1: most of my time to get everything ready for the
12:02
Speaker 1: show fine, And then the rest of my time I'm
12:07
Speaker 1: watching sports, which is related to the radio show. And
12:12
Speaker 1: I also spend a rather shocking amount of my life
12:16
Speaker 1: doing food prep. Now I still run into people. I've
12:20
Speaker 1: done a lot of these meet and greets, and I
12:23
Speaker 1: love the fact that there's a very small percentage of
12:27
Speaker 1: the listener not you per se other people that listen
12:31
Speaker 1: who are convinced that this is some kind of glamorous
12:36
Speaker 1: life that we are leading. They think that there's still
12:43
Speaker 1: some magic in the radio business. And like you're hanging
12:47
Speaker 1: out backstage at concerts with celebrities, you're drinking expensive booze,
12:52
Speaker 1: you're making power moves. Of course, the reality is something
12:57
Speaker 1: much different. For example, this past Saturday, it's Saturday today,
13:03
Speaker 1: but last Saturday, let's go back in the hot tup
13:05
Speaker 1: time machine. And this is how we spend most of
13:07
Speaker 1: my Saturday nights. While America is out committing all kinds
13:11
Speaker 1: of debauchery and regrettable acts, whether it be at clubs, bars,
13:18
Speaker 1: out on the streets, you name it. I am often
13:23
Speaker 1: standing in the Malor mansion in the kitchen staring at
13:28
Speaker 1: a tower of chicken bock bock chicken that needs to
13:33
Speaker 1: be rotated. Now that is not a metaphorical tower. I
13:38
Speaker 1: am talking an actual tower of chicken. Every week, I
13:44
Speaker 1: cook on the weekends for the following week, cook for
13:47
Speaker 1: me and the wife. And what we have done now
13:50
Speaker 1: is we alternate. One week will be ground beef, and
13:54
Speaker 1: I'll make a bunch of ground beef and all that,
13:56
Speaker 1: and then the next week is chicken. Now we normally
13:59
Speaker 1: make a version of chicken swarma. Now this is not
14:02
Speaker 1: approved by anyone. It's our version of chicken sharma. So
14:08
Speaker 1: when I do the ground beef, just bear with me.
14:11
Speaker 1: When I cook the ground beef, it's manageable. Ground beef
14:15
Speaker 1: is what I call a low maintenance food. It's a
14:18
Speaker 1: good friend who says, listen, don't worry about me. This
14:22
Speaker 1: is easy. You throw it in a pan, you turn
14:25
Speaker 1: the you put some oil in there, you turn the
14:28
Speaker 1: stove on. Mix in a few onions and I like
14:31
Speaker 1: bell pepper and some garlic, add some seasoning and boom,
14:35
Speaker 1: you're good. Just let that thing. Cook for a little bit.
14:38
Speaker 1: You're ready to go. Now, chicken shwarma. Our version of
14:41
Speaker 1: chicken sharma, meanwhile, is as as about a needy food
14:47
Speaker 1: dish as it gets. So the process with the sharma,
14:50
Speaker 1: and this is what I made the past week. The
14:53
Speaker 1: process with the warma begins with obviously seasoning the chicken.
14:57
Speaker 1: You have to pound the chicken so it's it's thin.
15:00
Speaker 1: You season it, You marinate the chicken. You then have
15:04
Speaker 1: to leave it marinating for a few hours at least,
15:06
Speaker 1: if not overnight. Then stack the chicken on the special
15:11
Speaker 1: schwarma type tray thing that we got. Now, since we
15:15
Speaker 1: don't actually run a Mediterranean restaurant, this is not a
15:20
Speaker 1: real spit. You know how they have the spit if
15:23
Speaker 1: you've been to have the chicken schwarm o where they
15:25
Speaker 1: spin it and they shave it. No, this is this
15:28
Speaker 1: is a thing that has a metal pole in the
15:30
Speaker 1: middle of it. You stack the chicken and you have
15:34
Speaker 1: to manually rotate the chicken. And I've studied this over
15:38
Speaker 1: the We've had this thing for about a year so months.
15:43
Speaker 1: I don't think it's been quite twelve months, but close
15:45
Speaker 1: to it. Who cares. So you know this is what
15:50
Speaker 1: you do. And so you got to rotate the chicken
15:51
Speaker 1: every so often, and so I spent a lot of
15:54
Speaker 1: my time staring at the chicken to see if it
15:56
Speaker 1: needs to be rotated. The entire production on a Saturday
16:00
Speaker 1: night take somewhere between three and four hours. This is
16:05
Speaker 1: the volume of chicken, the quantity of chicken that we
16:09
Speaker 1: are that we're making, because we got to We had
16:11
Speaker 1: to get it for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I'm
16:14
Speaker 1: off on Friday night, so we don't really worry about that,
16:17
Speaker 1: and the wife sometimes works more than that. So yeah,
16:21
Speaker 1: we get everything there, all the chicken marinated and all that,
16:25
Speaker 1: and stack the chicken and then rotate the chicken, and
16:30
Speaker 1: then we have to do it about every thirty minutes
16:35
Speaker 1: or so. The entire the entire deal, though is you know,
16:38
Speaker 1: it's long like if NASA ever needs someone to monitor
16:43
Speaker 1: a slow moving spacecraft, I am now qualified. I am
16:48
Speaker 1: now ready to go. So put me in coach. I
16:52
Speaker 1: am ready to play. And again every thirty minutes, I
16:56
Speaker 1: rotate the chicken one hundred and eighty degrees. And then
17:01
Speaker 1: later about ninety minutes into the process, I start shaving
17:08
Speaker 1: off that crispy, delicious outer exterior, like I'm giving the
17:13
Speaker 1: bird a haircut, and that's really good, crispy, solid, proper
17:19
Speaker 1: amount of seasoning. And there's this it's like the goldilock zone.
17:23
Speaker 1: And if you've cooked, you know what I'm talking about, Like,
17:25
Speaker 1: there's a point where it's just perfect. It's not too
17:28
Speaker 1: well done, it's not undercooked, it's perfect and you can
17:32
Speaker 1: see the sparkle and there you go. So I cut
17:35
Speaker 1: away that layer and then I apply more marinade, more seasoning,
17:41
Speaker 1: and I toss that chicken shwarma plate back in the
17:44
Speaker 1: oven and for another round. And this goes on and
17:48
Speaker 1: on and on. This chicken receives more attention than most
17:52
Speaker 1: professional athletes. And by the time it's finished, I will
17:57
Speaker 1: have enough schwarma meat to feed a medium sized village
18:02
Speaker 1: somewhere far far away, or one gas bag and his
18:08
Speaker 1: wife for four or five days. So the payoff is
18:12
Speaker 1: during the week. The payoff is during the week. All
18:16
Speaker 1: I have to do is reheat the chicken. Now I
18:19
Speaker 1: have to add a little onion and bell pepper. I
18:21
Speaker 1: do that with the beef. When I cook it the chicken,
18:24
Speaker 1: I make just chicken. And then you can add those
18:27
Speaker 1: are add on items. Much like our friend in Minnesota
18:33
Speaker 1: who complains you didn't do the rundown. What is right?
18:36
Speaker 1: That's an add on item. So the side dish is
18:39
Speaker 1: an add on item. So I'll cook, chop some onion,
18:43
Speaker 1: bell pepper, garlic, and mix that in and pretend that
18:47
Speaker 1: I'm operating some kind of malard Mediterranean restaurant. It's a
18:52
Speaker 1: ghost kitchen, if you will. So this past week, I
18:56
Speaker 1: know you're happy to know, was Benny Burrito Week. Yeah,
19:00
Speaker 1: very exciting. Have you ever heard of Benny Burrito weeks?
19:04
Speaker 1: So this is my new Michigas. I had purchased these
19:08
Speaker 1: oversized restaurant style tortillas, and I don't want to embellish this. Okay, However,
19:16
Speaker 1: the size of this tortilla large enough to use as
19:21
Speaker 1: a floatation device. If there's a flash flood, I will
19:25
Speaker 1: not drown. In fact, I could take this tortilla and
19:30
Speaker 1: float out to Hawaii. If I get into the current
19:33
Speaker 1: just the right way, I can just sit on the
19:36
Speaker 1: delicious restaurant style tortilla and make my way all the
19:40
Speaker 1: way to Kauai. That's it, And every evening I have
19:45
Speaker 1: about thirty five minutes to eat and I make the
19:49
Speaker 1: same thing during the week. The ritual is chop the onion,
19:53
Speaker 1: the bell pepper, the garlic. I like to caramel caramelize that,
19:57
Speaker 1: and that's a fancy way of saying, adding some sugar.
20:00
Speaker 1: And then I have the chicken. I mix some cheese
20:02
Speaker 1: in there, some sauce wrapped that bad boy towrdtilla. And
20:07
Speaker 1: I've got this down where Henry Ford would be impressed
20:10
Speaker 1: with my ability to handle the assembly line dining. Like
20:15
Speaker 1: supposedly Henry Ford invented the assembly line, and I have
20:19
Speaker 1: mastered the culinary assembly line. In fact, I am ready
20:22
Speaker 1: now to be a line cook. I am prepared to
20:25
Speaker 1: be a line cook, and that may be the way
20:27
Speaker 1: I go. So then came what historians will someday referred
20:32
Speaker 1: to as the incident as Benny Burrito Week had some sudden,
20:39
Speaker 1: unexpected drama. Now what was this, you ask? So again,
20:47
Speaker 1: this is I know I'm going way too into the
20:49
Speaker 1: weeds here. So I heated up the chicken. I had
20:53
Speaker 1: had the onions, I already caramelized those and the bell pepper,
20:56
Speaker 1: and then I added some more black pepper, and I
21:00
Speaker 1: made it how I wanted it, and I built what
21:02
Speaker 1: appeared to be a magnificent burrito. I'm talking restaurant quality burrito.
21:10
Speaker 1: There were layers and layers and layers. This had architectural integrity.
21:19
Speaker 1: I'm qualified now to make blueprints for a building. If
21:22
Speaker 1: I can make a burrito like this, imagine how cool
21:24
Speaker 1: the building is. So anyway, I slid the burrito into
21:27
Speaker 1: the air fryer. I like to heat the brito up
21:29
Speaker 1: even more in the air fryer. I set the timer
21:31
Speaker 1: for a few minutes, and whilet cooked, I began the
21:35
Speaker 1: domestic routine of cleaning all the stuff that I took
21:37
Speaker 1: out to make said burrito. So I'm putting away the
21:42
Speaker 1: sauce that I used. I'm putting away the pots and
21:44
Speaker 1: the pants and the cheese. And this is where things
21:49
Speaker 1: took a turn to the wild side, to the dark side,
21:53
Speaker 1: to the fuzzy side. So I'm grabbing this stuff. And
21:57
Speaker 1: I grabbed the cheese, and you kind of look at
21:59
Speaker 1: it with this kind of a side eye. You're not
22:01
Speaker 1: really looking at it. You're just like, Okay, I got
22:02
Speaker 1: to put this stuff away. This should go back in
22:04
Speaker 1: the refrigerator. So I grabbed the cheese. It was not
22:07
Speaker 1: bree cheese. It was not it was. It was Swiss cheese.
22:09
Speaker 1: So I grabbed the Swiss cheese, and I'm not really
22:14
Speaker 1: paying that close attention. It seemed fine whatever, And then
22:17
Speaker 1: I noticed a thing in the corner of a slice
22:21
Speaker 1: of the Swiss cheese that looked fuzzy, and in my
22:25
Speaker 1: head only, well, maybe i'm imagining that. I'm pretty sure
22:29
Speaker 1: that the Swiss cheese does not come with hair, and
22:33
Speaker 1: you know, not a little fuzz by the way, This
22:35
Speaker 1: is kind of fuzz that suggests you might need to
22:37
Speaker 1: go to the barber shop. The cheese had either gone
22:40
Speaker 1: through puberty or had begun exploring a new career and
22:45
Speaker 1: opportunities as a science project. So then I froze for
22:52
Speaker 1: a moment, because the burritos cooking, everything became very quiet.
22:56
Speaker 1: I kept examining the fuzzy cheese like a detective arriving
23:02
Speaker 1: at the crime scene. You tape it off and you're
23:04
Speaker 1: looking at it. The mold on the Swiss cheese. It
23:09
Speaker 1: occupied a section. It was near the upper left hand side,
23:13
Speaker 1: near the edge, and the rest of the body of
23:17
Speaker 1: the cheese appeared perfectly fine. It was that upper corner.
23:21
Speaker 1: And despite this, I immediately realized the horrifying truth that
23:26
Speaker 1: some of this cheese, likely the piece of cheese touching
23:30
Speaker 1: the furry piece of cheese had already made its way
23:33
Speaker 1: inside Benny's burrito. Not much, granted it wasn't I just
23:40
Speaker 1: put one piece in. It was enough enough, mind you,
23:45
Speaker 1: to create some uncertainty. And that is where the panic
23:51
Speaker 1: at the burrito came in. Not panic at the disco,
23:55
Speaker 1: panic at the brito. So I stood there, and the
23:58
Speaker 1: air fryer's going it, the timer's ticking down. I'm staring
24:02
Speaker 1: at the airfire. I'm looking at the basket as if
24:05
Speaker 1: it's containing a live hand grenade, and it's a grenade
24:10
Speaker 1: for my stomach. And what followed was a game show
24:13
Speaker 1: scenario where I imagined the booming announcer voice on this
24:21
Speaker 1: like nineteen nineties early two thousands game show saying welcome
24:24
Speaker 1: to Benny's Burrito, Russian Roulette style. On The crowd claps,
24:29
Speaker 1: because that's what we all do as human beings. We clap.
24:33
Speaker 1: The lights flash, The host comes out wearing a suit,
24:37
Speaker 1: starts smiling, says Behind door number one, Ben throws away
24:42
Speaker 1: the burrito and starts over polite applause. Behind door number two,
24:46
Speaker 1: Ben eats the burrito, potentially spends the evening over the
24:51
Speaker 1: commode discovering new dimensions of gastro intestinal distress, and the
24:59
Speaker 1: audience gasps, and the host pauses dramatically, and the drama builds.
25:06
Speaker 1: Which will he choose? And there's a clock ticking down.
25:11
Speaker 1: And at this point I conducted a full risk assessment
25:17
Speaker 1: the internal narrator. We all have that narration in our heads.
25:22
Speaker 1: So the narrator started working a little extra and I'm
25:25
Speaker 1: going through the options again. I'm like, okay, So again
25:27
Speaker 1: A is start over. Now this sounds reasonable when you
25:31
Speaker 1: first hear let's just start over. There's some possible furry
25:34
Speaker 1: cheese in there, so it sounds reasonable until you grasp
25:40
Speaker 1: that I had already used most of the available onion
25:43
Speaker 1: and bell pepper, which meant starting over would be a
25:47
Speaker 1: lesser quality burrito and would also mean more chopping and
25:51
Speaker 1: trying to find other things to put in there, which
25:54
Speaker 1: was a inconvenience. So that was option A. Option B
25:58
Speaker 1: was to just man up, and I'll rub some dirt
26:01
Speaker 1: on it and eat the burrito. The potential reward included
26:06
Speaker 1: saving time avoiding wasting food, because even if there was
26:11
Speaker 1: some furry cheese in there. Ninety nine percent of the
26:14
Speaker 1: brito was fine. It was just one piece of swize. Now,
26:17
Speaker 1: the consequences of option B include nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, diarrhea,
26:26
Speaker 1: a lot of regret, self loathing, and again that intimate
26:31
Speaker 1: relationship with the porta potty. And then there was briefly
26:36
Speaker 1: an option see attempt to surgically remove the questionable cheese.
26:43
Speaker 1: In military terms, they call it meatball surgery. This would
26:46
Speaker 1: be burrito surgery. Now that was quickly abandoned because the
26:50
Speaker 1: burrito had already entered a stage of development where any
26:55
Speaker 1: attempt of extraction would have been fatal to the burrito.
27:00
Speaker 1: I would have resembled an archaeological dig and it just
27:03
Speaker 1: would not have worked. So I stood there calculating the
27:06
Speaker 1: probabilities that use some malor math, and people often say, listen,
27:11
Speaker 1: in life, you can't just do the mundane. You have
27:15
Speaker 1: to take risks. Now, I would think those people think
27:19
Speaker 1: that taking risk involves like real risk, like climbing a
27:22
Speaker 1: mountain that might have a grizzly bear, or skydiving, jumping
27:26
Speaker 1: out of the plane, running with the bulls in Pamplona,
27:30
Speaker 1: swimming with sharks somewhere off the coast, of Africa. My
27:34
Speaker 1: version involved deciding whether a slightly moltly piece of Swiss
27:41
Speaker 1: cheese would destroy my digestive system. And I'm thinking about it,
27:46
Speaker 1: I'm processing everything and all that stuff. And this is
27:49
Speaker 1: what happens when you get older. Like the steaks remain high,
27:54
Speaker 1: the subject matter changes. For you young lads out there. When
27:59
Speaker 1: you're twenty five, your fears revolve around careal failure. For years,
28:04
Speaker 1: when I got into radio, I was like, oh, I'm
28:05
Speaker 1: not gonna make it a radio I'm gonna have fake
28:07
Speaker 1: a real job and I'm not gonna make it. I'm
28:08
Speaker 1: i gonna make it. And I've been in radio so
28:11
Speaker 1: long now I'm like, well, I've already made it, so
28:12
Speaker 1: even if I get whacked, I'll just go get another job.
28:14
Speaker 1: But I've had the career. I've had a better career
28:16
Speaker 1: that I couldn't have possibly hoped for when I got
28:19
Speaker 1: into radio. Not that I'm looking to leave anytime soon.
28:22
Speaker 1: I'd like to keep doing this, however, again at my age, though,
28:25
Speaker 1: the age I'm at now, you're wondering if a dairy
28:27
Speaker 1: product is plotting against you, and that hair was gonna
28:34
Speaker 1: plot up in your stomach and grow some other fungus
28:36
Speaker 1: and all that. Anyway, the the timer beep, the burrito
28:40
Speaker 1: was ready to come out of the air fryer, and
28:43
Speaker 1: I opened the tray and it looked magnificent, magnificent, just wonderful,
28:49
Speaker 1: golden brown on the outside, little cheese on top, perfectly crisp.
28:54
Speaker 1: It was Instagram ready. It was Instagram ready, completely unaware
29:02
Speaker 1: of the controversy surrounding its existence. And I looked at
29:07
Speaker 1: that burrito, and that burrito looked back at me, and
29:12
Speaker 1: at least this is how I remember it, and so
29:14
Speaker 1: I chose Option B. I said, I'm gonna ride and
29:16
Speaker 1: die with this delicious burrito. That's gonna be my move.
29:20
Speaker 1: No retreat, no surrender. I'm not throwing in the sponge.
29:24
Speaker 1: If this was fear Factor, Joe Rogan was going, whoa,
29:29
Speaker 1: he did it? He did it because I'd go by
29:31
Speaker 1: the original fear Factor. I guess they brought the show back.
29:33
Speaker 1: I didn't watch it, so I think one of the
29:35
Speaker 1: guys from Jackasses On or something like that. I'm og though,
29:38
Speaker 1: with fear factor eating bugs, eating bugs. So if this
29:42
Speaker 1: was a medical emergency waiting to happen, I was willing
29:46
Speaker 1: to accept the consequences. So I put the burrito down,
29:50
Speaker 1: I had my drink, I sat down to watch the
29:52
Speaker 1: Knicks play the Spurs. Now, the first bite of Benny's
29:55
Speaker 1: burrito was excellent. The second bite was all also marvelous.
30:01
Speaker 1: The third bite was accompanied by some mild paranoia. Every
30:06
Speaker 1: stomach gurgle. When you're eating a burrito that may may
30:11
Speaker 1: contain some fur, you start becoming suspicious. I know that
30:20
Speaker 1: Alf the Alien opinter agrees with me on this, and
30:22
Speaker 1: possibly fer Dog. Every hiccup felt somewhat significant, and I
30:26
Speaker 1: spent most of that NBA Finals game the other night
30:31
Speaker 1: conducting internal surveillance surveillance if you will, here is everything
30:38
Speaker 1: working right? Is this the proper is this proper digestion?
30:41
Speaker 1: Is this indigestion coming? Is there going to be gas?
30:46
Speaker 1: All of that? Was this going to be the beginning
30:48
Speaker 1: of the end? I had a radio show to do
30:50
Speaker 1: that night. Would I not be able to do the show?
30:53
Speaker 1: And it turned out? Nothing happened at that point. The
30:55
Speaker 1: fourth quarter arrived and still nothing. The only barf bag
31:00
Speaker 1: that happened from Mana Zuma's revenge was done by Wemby
31:03
Speaker 1: dearon Fox and the Spurs, blowing that twenty nine point League.
31:07
Speaker 1: So then the postgame show arrived with Charles Shack, Kenny Smith,
31:14
Speaker 1: Ernie Johnson, and some NBA guy. I forget, who's some loser.
31:18
Speaker 1: The next morning arrived and nothing and no nausea, no vomiting,
31:26
Speaker 1: no cramps, no emergencies. Sprint down the hallway. Benny Burrito
31:31
Speaker 1: had been conquered. Or perhaps the burrito had never been
31:35
Speaker 1: the enemy. Maybe the real danger was my imagination. And
31:40
Speaker 1: I have noticed this pattern throughout much of my life,
31:45
Speaker 1: that most disasters exist only in our heads. In fact,
31:50
Speaker 1: I read that years ago. I read this study from
31:53
Speaker 1: some university in Cincinnati. They said eighty five percent of
31:56
Speaker 1: the things that we worry about in life don't come true.
32:00
Speaker 1: It's the other fifteen percent that are a real bitch,
32:04
Speaker 1: you know, a real just horrible thing. And you think
32:07
Speaker 1: about it, it's fifteen percent. It's a one to fifty
32:11
Speaker 1: batting average. If you were in the ninth inning of
32:15
Speaker 1: the World Series and a one fifty hitter came up,
32:19
Speaker 1: you're nursing a one run lead. You wouldn't be too concerned.
32:23
Speaker 1: Unless that guy is a backup infielder for the Dodgers
32:26
Speaker 1: and you're the Toronto Blue Jays and then he hit
32:29
Speaker 1: a home run. Yeah, I know, too soon for our
32:32
Speaker 1: friends in Canada. Truly, we spent hours worrying about outcomes
32:38
Speaker 1: that often never arrive, never ever. And granted, sometimes moldy
32:42
Speaker 1: cheese really does make people sick, and sometimes it's just
32:48
Speaker 1: a fuzzy patch of a block of Swiss cheese that
32:51
Speaker 1: transforms just an ordinary night during the week into a
32:56
Speaker 1: personal episode of let's make a deal. Let's make it
33:00
Speaker 1: which curtain are you going to pick? And so there's
33:03
Speaker 1: lessons in that right. First lesson is inspect your cheese
33:07
Speaker 1: more carefully. Second lesson, never underestimate the dramatic possibilities of
33:12
Speaker 1: a kitchen cleanup. That's somewhat important. And third, if you're
33:18
Speaker 1: going to gamble, do it with a burrito while watching
33:22
Speaker 1: an NBA Finals game at the Malor Mansion with the
33:25
Speaker 1: toilet right next door, because if things go badly, and
33:30
Speaker 1: they don't often go badly, and they do go badly,
33:32
Speaker 1: at least you'll have something to distract you while waiting
33:37
Speaker 1: for the bodily functions to kick in. So the story
33:43
Speaker 1: had a happy ending. We didn't break the Internet still
33:46
Speaker 1: one of the more popular stories that we've told on
33:49
Speaker 1: the podcast. Is when I had my gallbladder out and
33:52
Speaker 1: I was out walking around the neighborhood, the old house
33:55
Speaker 1: out in the San Gabriel Valley where I used to
33:57
Speaker 1: live in LA and we were walking around, and this
34:00
Speaker 1: was during the pandemic. I had my gallbladder taken out
34:04
Speaker 1: right before the pandemic, and I was walking and I'd
34:07
Speaker 1: eaten some food earlier and I had to go to
34:09
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I thought I had enough time to make
34:12
Speaker 1: it back to the home toilet, and at some point
34:17
Speaker 1: I was about halfway back and I realized I am
34:19
Speaker 1: not going to make it, like this is going to
34:22
Speaker 1: end badly, and I was like, do I go in
34:25
Speaker 1: the woods and just poop right there in the woods?
34:28
Speaker 1: And then I remember there was a public bathroom that
34:30
Speaker 1: I thought maybe open. Remember during the pandemic, even the
34:34
Speaker 1: public bathrooms were closed. So I made it to the
34:37
Speaker 1: park and sure enough the bathroom was open. And you
34:40
Speaker 1: can go back and hear the episode. Let's just say
34:42
Speaker 1: I did not handle the situation well. When I was
34:47
Speaker 1: in the bathroom, it got a little messy. Well leave
34:50
Speaker 1: it at that. I don't want to ruin the rest
34:52
Speaker 1: of your Saturday. Have a wonderful glorious day, and we'll
34:57
Speaker 1: have the mail bag on Sunday. And I'm not completely
35:02
Speaker 1: giving up on the Spurs. I feel like they're toast.
35:05
Speaker 1: I would love to see them win and put the
35:09
Speaker 1: pressure on the Knicks to win that game at home
35:11
Speaker 1: and not have to go back to San Antonio. We'll
35:13
Speaker 1: see what happens tonight. And as Dick and Dayton would say,
35:17
Speaker 1: bye bye, bye bye,