Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Hello Yellow, Into the Amazon

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The Fifth Hour: Hello Yellow, Into the Amazon · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Kabbooms.
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 soul 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 2: the air everywhere.
0:32
Speaker 1: The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maler and Danny G.
0:35
Speaker 1: The Weekend starts right now. Happy Friday is the nineteenth
0:40
Speaker 1: day of September. Just a few hours ago, I got
0:42
Speaker 1: done with the overnight show and here we are back
0:45
Speaker 1: in the podcast studio. Danny G Radio will join me
0:49
Speaker 1: at some point over the weekend. But on this podcast,
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Speaker 1: The Friday Spectacular, we have Hello, Yellow Sugary Lollipop, and
1:00
Speaker 1: who knows what else, But we start with this. It
1:02
Speaker 1: is National Tradesman Day. That's right, National Tradesman Day celebrated
1:07
Speaker 1: the third Friday of September every year. It's relatively new.
1:12
Speaker 1: I brought this up because having met a number of
1:15
Speaker 1: you at various meet and greets over the years in
1:18
Speaker 1: different parts of the country. A number of you have
1:21
Speaker 1: worked in the trades you have right, whether you could
1:26
Speaker 1: be anything from a carpenter like just Josh, you're in
1:30
Speaker 1: the building maintenance, world, plumbing, electricity, any of that stuff,
1:36
Speaker 1: and the trades are are massive. I think I would
1:41
Speaker 1: have done okay in that if I'd learned a skill,
1:44
Speaker 1: obviously other than talking about sports. But listen, the great
1:49
Speaker 1: thing about the tradesmen, as you guys know, you don't
1:52
Speaker 1: really think about it much until you need them, and
1:55
Speaker 1: it would be almost impossible, if not impossible, to have
2:00
Speaker 1: a high quality of life without a bunch of tradesmen.
2:04
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because I did see the stat that
2:08
Speaker 1: this is not the fun fact, by the way, but
2:10
Speaker 1: I did you see a stat that one new tradesman
2:13
Speaker 1: comes into the profession for three old ones, meaning that
2:17
Speaker 1: every time three tradesmen retire from their profession, only one
2:23
Speaker 1: new one joins the forces. That is a supply shortage situation.
2:27
Speaker 1: And according to a recent study from the Hudson Institute,
2:32
Speaker 1: which I am not sure what that is, but they
2:34
Speaker 1: I saw this study and they said that the way
2:37
Speaker 1: things are going, barring some kind of change, there will
2:41
Speaker 1: be a shortage of tradesmen by twenty fifty, so that's
2:45
Speaker 1: a generation from now there will be not enough tradesmen
2:50
Speaker 1: in the world. And there's been this debate, but is
2:54
Speaker 1: it good for your health to be in the trades
2:57
Speaker 1: and whatnot. However, based on the fact that a lot
3:01
Speaker 1: of us have set jobs that we're sitting around, we're
3:04
Speaker 1: sitting at desk, I sit in the radio studio all night,
3:08
Speaker 1: that you're not moving, you're not getting your blood flowing.
3:11
Speaker 1: That actually, as opposed to those type of jobs, seditary jobs,
3:16
Speaker 1: that if you're in the trades, you're actually healthier because
3:21
Speaker 1: you're constantly moving your body around, your muscles, your joints,
3:25
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And I had some friends of mine
3:28
Speaker 1: that got into the trades and they've made good money,
3:31
Speaker 1: they've had consistent employment, and the only things they've complained
3:35
Speaker 1: about sometimes they are having to work on the holidays
3:37
Speaker 1: because if you're a plumber and somebody's toilet gets clogged
3:41
Speaker 1: or something like that on Christmas, who you're gonna call?
3:44
Speaker 1: Gonna call a plumber and all that. But anyway, so
3:47
Speaker 1: celebrate National Tradesman Day today. And the fun fact, the
3:51
Speaker 1: fun fact on National Tradesmen's Day, going back to the
3:54
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, Is it true that when you were a
3:59
Speaker 1: barber in the Middle Ages, not only were you a barber,
4:03
Speaker 1: but you also provided your service as a doctor to
4:09
Speaker 1: the lower class, the lower social class, the poor people
4:13
Speaker 1: who could not afford to go to an actual Middle
4:18
Speaker 1: Ages doctor, so they had aches and pains. The barber
4:25
Speaker 1: turned out to be the doctor. Sounds like something that
4:29
Speaker 1: Doc Mike out of Chicago would do. Now, on that note,
4:34
Speaker 1: we turned the page and a story that I was
4:37
Speaker 1: debating whether or not to share with you. I ultimately
4:41
Speaker 1: determined that that what happened to me this week is
4:44
Speaker 1: both educational and also perfect for this format because you,
4:51
Speaker 1: by listening to the Fifth Hour, are p one your
4:56
Speaker 1: next level. There's a lot of people. We do very
4:57
Speaker 1: well on the Overnight Show. There's a lot of people
4:59
Speaker 1: that listen, but a lot of the people listen just
5:01
Speaker 1: because we happen to be on at that time. Right,
5:05
Speaker 1: you have to go out of your way to find
5:07
Speaker 1: this podcast, right, the Fifth Hour podcast. It is promoted
5:11
Speaker 1: on the Overnight Show. We do promote it, but you
5:13
Speaker 1: have to go out of your way to find it.
5:16
Speaker 1: And you've done that. So it's story time on the
5:21
Speaker 1: Fifth Hour. Let me tell you about fasting. Now I
5:26
Speaker 1: have discovered it is not for whims. It's for lunatics,
5:29
Speaker 1: is what it's what it's for. So for many years
5:31
Speaker 1: now I have practiced innerminute fasting. You may know that
5:34
Speaker 1: if you've listened to these podcasts, you know I've talked
5:37
Speaker 1: about my life choices when it comes to that kind
5:40
Speaker 1: of thing. So for the most part, the way it
5:43
Speaker 1: works is one meal a day. Sometimes I will skip
5:46
Speaker 1: a day and I will stretch out the fast from
5:50
Speaker 1: say twenty three hours or twenty four hours. I will
5:53
Speaker 1: go to forty eight hours, sometimes even longer than that,
5:58
Speaker 1: and I would go without food. Is my personal Michigas.
6:02
Speaker 1: As my grandfather would say. It's it's kind of like
6:05
Speaker 1: rooting for the Clippers in the nineties or collecting ticket
6:08
Speaker 1: stubs from UC Irvine with a guy named Billy Mulligan
6:12
Speaker 1: who is the coach from their basketball games. You do
6:15
Speaker 1: it because it makes sense only to you, and that's
6:19
Speaker 1: why you do it. So this week, this week, though,
6:22
Speaker 1: the routine betrayed me. So my lovely wife and I
6:27
Speaker 1: we went out to a rare for US rare for
6:30
Speaker 1: US meal. Since I usually cook, I like futson around
6:34
Speaker 1: in the kitchen and so one of us will make
6:37
Speaker 1: it easy as me. But we'll make food and end
6:40
Speaker 1: up eating at home. Let's say six days a week,
6:43
Speaker 1: maybe go out once a week. And so we went
6:45
Speaker 1: to one of our favorite spots. It's a local spot,
6:49
Speaker 1: kind of a kind of a place that serves chicken
6:52
Speaker 1: fingers and pastromi fries. My kind of place, My kind
6:55
Speaker 1: of place that's soul food. It's so indulgent that if
7:00
Speaker 1: you had an offensive line or a sumo wrestling outfit,
7:05
Speaker 1: they would enjoy the food. They would enjoy. It's heavy food. It's,
7:08
Speaker 1: like I said, soul food. It's fried in memory and regret.
7:13
Speaker 1: So I broke my fast. I had been fasting for
7:16
Speaker 1: roughly forty eight hours, and I broke my fast with
7:20
Speaker 1: some gusto, some razzle dazzle. I gobbled down my delicious
7:25
Speaker 1: chicken fingers with the honey mustard, the barbecue and the
7:29
Speaker 1: house sauce, which is kind of like a Thousand Island
7:32
Speaker 1: type thing. So I hate that. I think Spacoli would approve.
7:37
Speaker 1: I hugged the wife goodbye as she went to work. Waddled,
7:42
Speaker 1: I waddled like a penguin out to the parking lot,
7:44
Speaker 1: to the mal ormobile, thinking was it worth it? Was
7:48
Speaker 1: it worth it? And see, I had ad home because
7:51
Speaker 1: I had to prepare for the Ben Mahler Show, and
7:54
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of time needed to prepare the monologues.
7:58
Speaker 1: There's bullet points that go into that, and I have
8:00
Speaker 1: to find things that I'm interested in. So then my
8:03
Speaker 1: stomach whispered back as I was settling in for the
8:08
Speaker 1: relatively short drive back to the Malor mansion, and the
8:13
Speaker 1: stomach whispered, oh you think so, huh okay. Now by
8:19
Speaker 1: the time I hit the road, that whisper had become
8:23
Speaker 1: a primal scream. And this restaurant's about ten minutes from
8:29
Speaker 1: the Malor Mansion, and yet I felt like I was
8:33
Speaker 1: carrying a live hand grenade in my gut. You ever
8:37
Speaker 1: had that, We've all had that, right, you've had that.
8:40
Speaker 1: I've had it before. I haven't had in a while.
8:43
Speaker 1: Now you should know, and maybe you do that roughly
8:46
Speaker 1: five or six years ago. I think it was six
8:48
Speaker 1: years ago. Now, I had my gallbladder removed. Yeah, Now,
8:54
Speaker 1: if you've had that happen, you know this. If not,
8:57
Speaker 1: if you lived long enough and eat fried food, that's
9:00
Speaker 1: going to happen. So it changes the way the machinery
9:04
Speaker 1: works in the body. Your body keeps score. Why would
9:09
Speaker 1: your body keep score? And the thing about it, it's
9:11
Speaker 1: a little trickerations because the body waits for the exact
9:14
Speaker 1: wrong time to remind you, and then all of a sudden,
9:19
Speaker 1: it is Dante's inferno. We are talking death con one
9:24
Speaker 1: as a gastro intestinal emergency situation. So keep in mind,
9:30
Speaker 1: I have a ten minute drive. I was staring down
9:33
Speaker 1: a red light parade, one after another after another, like
9:37
Speaker 1: rush hour in midtown Manhattan, a sea of red, a
9:41
Speaker 1: red sea. So now I'm doing inventory. I got what
9:45
Speaker 1: appears to be a gastro intestinal hand grenade in my
9:50
Speaker 1: stomach that is fertilized. I've got a good amount of
9:57
Speaker 1: time to go. And I did the malth and it
10:00
Speaker 1: wrote back in my head, no chance, in that little
10:03
Speaker 1: cartoon bubble them above my head. No chance. So now
10:07
Speaker 1: this becomes a two minute drill, but not not a
10:10
Speaker 1: two minute drill that you might think is going to
10:14
Speaker 1: be successful, because this is a two minute drill, except
10:16
Speaker 1: the quarterback had no timeouts. It was a pouring rainstorm.
10:21
Speaker 1: The quarterback also had two left feet, and the clock
10:24
Speaker 1: was mocking the quarterback. So I end up making it.
10:30
Speaker 1: I said about ten minutes, but I made it about
10:32
Speaker 1: eight minutes in and it was a couple of minutes
10:35
Speaker 1: from the Malor mansion. And suddenly, imagine the US Space program,
10:42
Speaker 1: NASA counting down five four, three two one. We have
10:52
Speaker 1: lift off. We have lift off. Apollo eleven has blasted
10:56
Speaker 1: off into space. Now, in my case, it wasn't a
10:59
Speaker 1: P eleven. It was kaboom. Let's just say, in that moment,
11:04
Speaker 1: I became a Cleveland Browns fan. In that moment, I
11:09
Speaker 1: became a Cleveland Browns fan. The Malormobile was christened in
11:14
Speaker 1: brown Town. If you will in Brownston, what can brown
11:18
Speaker 1: do for you? Now, for the record, I want to
11:20
Speaker 1: clarify this because some of you knuckleheads, like just Josh
11:23
Speaker 1: and others. We'll run with this. And I did have
11:28
Speaker 1: a famous incident at a park when I was walking
11:31
Speaker 1: around getting steps in and totally dropped a bomb on you,
11:37
Speaker 1: a poop bomb in a public restroom. That was like
11:42
Speaker 1: a crime scene. So this was not that. So I'm
11:44
Speaker 1: in the car. I mentioned kaboom. The Malomobile was disheveled,
11:50
Speaker 1: but for the record, it was technically not poop. This
11:54
Speaker 1: was Billy Ruben I am told is the term it's yellow,
11:59
Speaker 1: hello yellow, definitely not mellow yellow. It is not mellow yellow.
12:05
Speaker 1: It was Mana Zuma's revenge or in this case, Malar's revenge.
12:09
Speaker 1: We'll rebrand it Malar's revenge or put the highlight of
12:13
Speaker 1: their Malard's gut punch. So, in other words, the exact
12:17
Speaker 1: kind of technicality that only those of us who are
12:21
Speaker 1: middle aged men would cling to when describing our own humiliation.
12:27
Speaker 1: So technically, not poop is a phrase that could serve
12:30
Speaker 1: as an epithet for many things here that have gone
12:34
Speaker 1: on around this time and maybe my generation anyway. So
12:38
Speaker 1: the good news is, and this is the most important
12:40
Speaker 1: part to me, This is the most important part, because
12:43
Speaker 1: when we had five four three two one, we have
12:47
Speaker 1: lift off, we have lift off of Apollo eleven or
12:50
Speaker 1: in this case, you know what. So I was worried.
12:54
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean, this is this is a lot.
12:56
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on, and the car is going
12:59
Speaker 1: to be destroyed. I gotta use the car to I
13:02
Speaker 1: have a long drive. It's gonna stink, it's gonna be terrible.
13:05
Speaker 1: This is a nightmare situation. The good news one word
13:10
Speaker 1: one word, containment, very important word. Most of the bodily
13:17
Speaker 1: oil spill the Exxon Valdis, the Malar Valdis. Most of
13:22
Speaker 1: it was captured by the clothing and not the upholstery
13:27
Speaker 1: in the car. So this made it a messy, certainly humiliating,
13:32
Speaker 1: but survivable. Fumbo rooskate. All right again this I had
13:37
Speaker 1: no control at that point. I would have obviously not
13:41
Speaker 1: had that happen. I tried to find somewhere to stop
13:45
Speaker 1: along the way and the places I was looking to stop.
13:49
Speaker 1: By the time I figured out I needed to stop,
13:51
Speaker 1: I was not near anywhere to stop. So I did
13:54
Speaker 1: make it to the Malor mansion. I parked, and unfortunately,
13:59
Speaker 1: much to my disappoint I had to sit there for
14:01
Speaker 1: several minutes. It seemed like it was about three hours.
14:04
Speaker 1: It was probably only five minutes, but I was waiting
14:07
Speaker 1: because there's a kind of a green area, grassy area
14:09
Speaker 1: in front of the house, and one of my neighbors
14:13
Speaker 1: was walking her dog at the worst possible time. My
14:17
Speaker 1: whole plan was, all right, boom, get their park, run
14:20
Speaker 1: into the house, and take care of business. Now, keep
14:22
Speaker 1: in mind, I don't even know this middle aged woman
14:25
Speaker 1: who's my neighbor. I don't know a few of the neighbors,
14:27
Speaker 1: but not many. Nevertheless, you cannot make eye contact. In
14:31
Speaker 1: that moment. You are covered with shrapnel. Right you have
14:35
Speaker 1: been hit with some AMMO and your down range and
14:41
Speaker 1: it's just kind of soaking into everything. At this point,
14:44
Speaker 1: you can still feel it as you move around. It's
14:47
Speaker 1: a big mess. So you wait for the coast to clear.
14:51
Speaker 1: And then at that moment, all of a sudden, I realized,
14:54
Speaker 1: wait a minute, the path is clear. It's go time. Okay,
14:58
Speaker 1: it's go time? Was that me? So then you sprint? Okay,
15:03
Speaker 1: you sprint like you sained bolt across the lawn. I
15:06
Speaker 1: know Ferg dog's very fast, so he knows that I
15:08
Speaker 1: don't know about alf. So I had the laundry situation,
15:12
Speaker 1: which was unfortunately a hazmat situation, and then I had
15:19
Speaker 1: that on and then I had shame. There was some shame.
15:22
Speaker 1: Now the wife was at work, so I didn't have
15:23
Speaker 1: to worry about that. I get in the house and
15:27
Speaker 1: it was a malor rescue and recovery mission. It was swift.
15:31
Speaker 1: I went as fast as I could. The only one
15:34
Speaker 1: in the house was my dog, Moxie. Moxie opened her
15:38
Speaker 1: eyes and she looked at me in shame. There was
15:41
Speaker 1: some shame there. She didn't say anything because she can't talk,
15:45
Speaker 1: but my English bulldog Moxie definitely knew something was not
15:48
Speaker 1: right and that I was closer to her than I
15:51
Speaker 1: was another human being. So the clothes immediately go on
15:54
Speaker 1: the washer, all the clothes, everything. I then high tailored
16:00
Speaker 1: to the shower. The car has to be cleaned after
16:03
Speaker 1: the shower. And indignity, well, dignity is not not easy
16:09
Speaker 1: in this. But here's the lesson. All right, here's the
16:11
Speaker 1: lesson to my friends, you boys and girls. Fasting is
16:18
Speaker 1: kind of like life. This is a weird part of
16:23
Speaker 1: aging that and I don't think I'm that old. I
16:25
Speaker 1: don't feel that old, although this certainly made me feel older.
16:28
Speaker 1: But your body keeps finding new ways to remind you that.
16:32
Speaker 1: You might think you are in control, you might think
16:34
Speaker 1: you have a choke hold on the game of life,
16:37
Speaker 1: but you are not in control. You can be disciplined
16:42
Speaker 1: for years. You can control your schedule, fast every day.
16:48
Speaker 1: Think you're doing what's right at the time for the
16:51
Speaker 1: zeitgeist of the time. But one plate of delicious deep
16:56
Speaker 1: fried golden brown chicken fingers and a big bucket of
17:01
Speaker 1: pastromi fries. Will remind you that in the end, the
17:06
Speaker 1: randomness of life always wins. Right. You can plan the fast,
17:11
Speaker 1: you can plan the aftermath of said fast, all of that.
17:16
Speaker 1: Clearly I didn't do that properly. My game plan was
17:18
Speaker 1: not great. And every so often, when you get to
17:24
Speaker 1: the point of life that I'm at here and a
17:27
Speaker 1: lot of you guys are at in middle age, your
17:30
Speaker 1: body taps you on the shoulder and says, hey, buddy,
17:33
Speaker 1: hey about it. Remember me, Yeah, the warranty, it's expired.
17:37
Speaker 1: You need a new warranty. And so that was that
17:41
Speaker 1: was my very interesting afternoon. And I did not mention
17:44
Speaker 1: it on the radio show for obvious reasons. So if
17:48
Speaker 1: you hear this, you're listening right now, you're obviously hearing this.
17:50
Speaker 1: You're one of the few that have heard the story.
17:53
Speaker 1: So it's onward and upward. And next time I have
17:56
Speaker 1: a forty eight hour fast, I will remember to not
17:59
Speaker 1: eat pastrami fries, chicken, maybe some grilled chicken and some rice,
18:05
Speaker 1: and that'll be good. That'll be good. So moving on
18:08
Speaker 1: from that, I want to turn the page to the Amazon.
18:11
Speaker 1: We go to the Amazon all right, So the Amazon
18:14
Speaker 1: I saw this. I was gonna mention it on the
18:16
Speaker 1: Overnight Show. I didn't get to it. I wanted to
18:19
Speaker 1: bring it up with you here, and I don't know
18:21
Speaker 1: if you know exactly what I'm talking about. This is
18:23
Speaker 1: not about al Michael's performance last night on The Thrilling,
18:28
Speaker 1: Riveting Bill's Dolphins game. It's not about that. So the
18:33
Speaker 1: new basketball season is starting soon. Oh, you shouldn't talk
18:37
Speaker 1: about the NBA. It's not really about the NBA. It's
18:40
Speaker 1: about Amazon. So Amazon is about to jump into the
18:43
Speaker 1: deep end of the basketball pool. They are strutting around
18:47
Speaker 1: like not peacocks because that's NBC. But they're strutting around
18:50
Speaker 1: like the biggest, baddest company in the world, Amazon, and
18:53
Speaker 1: they're in bed now with the NBA and they us.
18:57
Speaker 1: They had to take the WNBA. Who's watching that crap?
19:00
Speaker 1: What's the first thing the big boss, this guy named
19:03
Speaker 1: Jay Marine that sounds like a fake name. What's the
19:06
Speaker 1: first thing this big boss, j Marine tells us? He
19:10
Speaker 1: says the mantra of Amazon NBA coverage, The mantra of
19:15
Speaker 1: this outfit is too It's three words, celebrate and educate, period.
19:22
Speaker 1: Stop celebrate and educate. Let me repeat that for those
19:26
Speaker 1: of you in the back of the room. Celebrate and educate.
19:29
Speaker 1: That's the plan for the Amazon Amazon Prime. Now my
19:34
Speaker 1: reaction is not three words, it's three letters. O MG
19:39
Speaker 1: O MG, as in, oh my god. Now I am
19:45
Speaker 1: not great at a lot of things. You might think
19:47
Speaker 1: I suck itt radio whatever. However, I have worked in
19:51
Speaker 1: the broadcasting business for a long time and that's not
19:55
Speaker 1: how I was raised. That was not how I was
19:57
Speaker 1: raised in broadcasting, and I don't know anyone else who
19:59
Speaker 1: wants that content. To me, that's not broadcasting. When you
20:02
Speaker 1: say celebrate and educate, that's not broadcasting. That's the Soviet
20:06
Speaker 1: prov the news service is what that is. That's propaganda
20:10
Speaker 1: in a stream. Celebrate and educate. That's a kindergarten slogan.
20:15
Speaker 1: That's a company picnic where everybody gets a little gold star.
20:20
Speaker 1: It's just for showing up. You get a little gold
20:22
Speaker 1: star and some potato salad. Congratulations. But I don't like
20:25
Speaker 1: potato salad. It's disgusting. Now as I understand it, the
20:29
Speaker 1: plan here is, instead of breaking down bad defenses, are
20:34
Speaker 1: calling out a star player who mailed it in, because
20:37
Speaker 1: God knows that never happens. Instead, what we're gonna get
20:41
Speaker 1: is a ten minute package of someone's dog rescue story. Right, Oh,
20:45
Speaker 1: he saved his dog from being eaten by a bunch
20:49
Speaker 1: of coyotes. The Amazon NBA logo should be a puffer
20:54
Speaker 1: fish who says no, who says no. It is sugarcoating,
20:59
Speaker 1: is what like? From what I have read again, I've
21:02
Speaker 1: read the trades on this. It's Amazon serving you a
21:05
Speaker 1: sugary lollipop and telling you it's a cheeseburger and fries. Well,
21:09
Speaker 1: I wanted a cheeseburger in fries. You get the sugary lollipop.
21:13
Speaker 1: I didn't want the lollipop. I wanted the cheeseburger and fries.
21:15
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. We're serving sugar sugary lollipops. You should
21:19
Speaker 1: enjoy the sugary lollipop. It's on sale on Amazon Prime.
21:22
Speaker 1: But I wanted a cheeseburger and fries. It doesn't matter.
21:24
Speaker 1: Here's my main problem, all right, and listen. I understand
21:29
Speaker 1: everyone's different, and I get that. But for the most part,
21:32
Speaker 1: viewers are not dumb. Okay, some are, some are, but
21:37
Speaker 1: viewers are not dumb. You insult people's intelligence with puff pieces.
21:41
Speaker 1: It's like putting on a classic Sugar Loaf record. Don't
21:46
Speaker 1: call us, We'll call you. Don't call us, we'll call you.
21:50
Speaker 1: And that's what the fans will be humming when they
21:55
Speaker 1: tune out. You know, the nonsense. Because the goal you
22:00
Speaker 1: put me in charge, you make me the boss. The
22:02
Speaker 1: goal should be to entertain and to inform, not to
22:07
Speaker 1: sell me a cheesy version of pro basketball where everything
22:12
Speaker 1: is sunshine and rainbows, unicorns and the whole thing so
22:18
Speaker 1: bull of cherries. You're going against human nature. We're all hardwired,
22:26
Speaker 1: all of us. I don't care your gender or your race.
22:30
Speaker 1: I don't care about any of that stuff because we're
22:33
Speaker 1: all the same. When you peel back all the layers,
22:36
Speaker 1: it's human nature. If it bleeds, it leads. As a
22:40
Speaker 1: phrase in television news, the reason that is a phrase
22:44
Speaker 1: is because people love that crap. They can't get enough
22:48
Speaker 1: of that crap and spoiler alert. People love the negative,
22:53
Speaker 1: whether it's negative news or a negative story about an athlete,
22:57
Speaker 1: and they crave the train wreck, the drama orama, as
23:02
Speaker 1: we like to say the flame outs. You have to
23:05
Speaker 1: know what the customer wants, and you have to give
23:08
Speaker 1: the customer what they want, and that is what drives
23:12
Speaker 1: the conversation. Amazon has more than enough money. They have
23:17
Speaker 1: plenty of research, market research that they shows us. They
23:20
Speaker 1: are aware of the situation. This is not some kind
23:24
Speaker 1: of new situation from the Book of Revelations. Sports are
23:28
Speaker 1: filled with juicy drama. They just are players who hate coaches,
23:32
Speaker 1: coaches who hate the media, media who hate the players,
23:35
Speaker 1: and the coaches. And professional sports in particular are about
23:40
Speaker 1: the conflict. The star athlete who's more concerned about his
23:44
Speaker 1: TikTok than making the jump shot and practicing his jump shot,
23:50
Speaker 1: the Matador defense or ela that is a problem. So
23:55
Speaker 1: it's about someone. If you're doing it right, it's highlighting
24:00
Speaker 1: someone in an NBA game choking in the clutch, leaning
24:04
Speaker 1: into load management, or a coach losing the locker room.
24:08
Speaker 1: People will tune in for that. They're not going to
24:11
Speaker 1: tune in for the marshmallowy stuff. They don't flip on
24:15
Speaker 1: a game to hear a bedtime story. Amazon doesn't want
24:19
Speaker 1: to show you the warts, the soft underbelly, the screw ups,
24:24
Speaker 1: the reality of the game. They want to tuck you
24:27
Speaker 1: into bed with a warm glass of milk and a
24:31
Speaker 1: bedtime story about how everyone is a winner. You're a winner,
24:35
Speaker 1: Little Johnny, You're a winner. It's like Amazon is officially
24:39
Speaker 1: smoking the psychedelic rock pipe. The people involved in this
24:42
Speaker 1: NBA stuff like totally out of touch on this. And
24:46
Speaker 1: you know what this is. It's a kale smoothie. It's
24:50
Speaker 1: a kale smoothie with a bit of glitter on top.
24:54
Speaker 1: I don't need glitter. I don't want kale either. But
24:56
Speaker 1: Amazon thinks it's a party. It tastes like it's disgusting. Meanwhile,
25:04
Speaker 1: the fan, what does the fan want? I just want
25:07
Speaker 1: to chill out. Most people that consume sports, it's a pastime.
25:11
Speaker 1: It's something you do after a long day at work.
25:14
Speaker 1: It's something that you do to kind of chill out,
25:16
Speaker 1: and you just want to have a beer and some
25:18
Speaker 1: hot wings or whatever your jam is. For me, it's
25:20
Speaker 1: chicken fingers. You don't want some corporate ted talk about
25:24
Speaker 1: celebrating and educating. Celebrating and educating. This isn't broadcasting. It's
25:31
Speaker 1: narrow casting and it's marketing, is what it is. It's
25:35
Speaker 1: those things. And Amazon just announced to the world that
25:38
Speaker 1: they'd rather be what Oprah's book Club than Monday Night
25:42
Speaker 1: Basketball or whatever it's going to be now, the other
25:44
Speaker 1: conspiracy let me put on my tinfoil hat here. So
25:49
Speaker 1: the other conspiracy on this is that the NBA wanted this,
25:55
Speaker 1: that this is what the NBA wants, That the Amazon
25:59
Speaker 1: people are just file following the marching orders of big Basketball.
26:03
Speaker 1: And for a while I have heard from the people
26:08
Speaker 1: that I know that work in the NBA that the
26:10
Speaker 1: league office and I'm not sure exactly whether it's Adam
26:13
Speaker 1: Silver or people below Adam Silver, it doesn't really matter.
26:16
Speaker 1: People that live in that Manhattan bubble bubble that work
26:21
Speaker 1: in the in the NBA league offices have long been
26:25
Speaker 1: bothered by what they deem a negative cloud that covers
26:29
Speaker 1: the NBA, that they don't celebrate. They don't celebrate basketball.
26:35
Speaker 1: So when I heard the word celebrate, that was immediately
26:39
Speaker 1: an alarm bell that went on, Well, wait a minute.
26:42
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that I've heard in the
26:44
Speaker 1: feedback I've got. They were very upset with Jeff Van
26:46
Speaker 1: Gundy for his criticism of the sport, for his criticism
26:51
Speaker 1: of the officiating. He has been exiled. He's on the
26:54
Speaker 1: LA Clippers coaching staff. So Van Gundy is an example
26:58
Speaker 1: of that. They also, despite being tremendously popular, have issues
27:03
Speaker 1: with Charles Barkley and Shaquill O'Neal and the whole shocking
27:07
Speaker 1: of fool mocking some of the players and Charles Barkley,
27:10
Speaker 1: those guys who are unhinged with their commentary. It does
27:14
Speaker 1: rub people wrong and they're bothered. People work for the NBA,
27:18
Speaker 1: some of them, again, not all of them. This is
27:19
Speaker 1: a small minority, but clearly a vocal minority who have
27:23
Speaker 1: been bothered by that presentation of their product. They believe
27:29
Speaker 1: that their product is all high and mighty and that
27:34
Speaker 1: they should celebrate. That's the celebrate thing. The other concern
27:40
Speaker 1: the NBA has is the fan base getting older people
27:43
Speaker 1: my age and older that like basketball, and younger people
27:47
Speaker 1: only consume the highlights, which is appropriate because we did
27:50
Speaker 1: a rant about Adam Silver and his situation where he
27:54
Speaker 1: said it's just a highlight sport and then he tried
27:56
Speaker 1: to put tried to unring the bell and all that.
27:58
Speaker 1: So I bring this up in addition because the perception
28:02
Speaker 1: is that Amazon Prime is going to be a younger
28:06
Speaker 1: audience and that there'll be people that will click on
28:10
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime that aren't basketball fans, and so they want
28:13
Speaker 1: the league office wants to educate the people that are
28:17
Speaker 1: casuals that are not fully invested, which seems fine in theory,
28:23
Speaker 1: but in reality not so good because you're offending your
28:33
Speaker 1: base to gain what a few more possible consumers of
28:39
Speaker 1: your product, but you're going to upset a larger percentage
28:43
Speaker 1: of people that already know the game and don't want
28:46
Speaker 1: to be educated like they're in kindergarten and learn the
28:49
Speaker 1: ABC's and the one two threes. They already know that stuff.
28:54
Speaker 1: They're already aware of that stuff. All right, we'll get
28:58
Speaker 1: out on that. Danny should join me at some point.
29:01
Speaker 1: We'll have a new podcast on Saturday and a new
29:04
Speaker 1: one on Sunday. By the way, before I forget, if
29:06
Speaker 1: you want to send an email in I checked the
29:10
Speaker 1: other day. I have not checked this morning here on Friday,
29:14
Speaker 1: but the other day we were a little slow in
29:17
Speaker 1: the email. So if we don't get enough, we will
29:19
Speaker 1: not have a mailbag. So if you want to be
29:23
Speaker 1: in the mail bag and make sure we have a
29:25
Speaker 1: Sunday pod, I mean, we're planning on doing it. We
29:28
Speaker 1: have a few, but we usually have a lot more
29:30
Speaker 1: than this, so I don't know what happened with the email.
29:32
Speaker 1: So hopefully we'll get a few more of you to
29:35
Speaker 1: send us an email. Real fifth hour at gmail dot
29:38
Speaker 1: com is the email address. That's real fifth hour at
29:43
Speaker 1: gmail dot com and just all letters, no numbers. Name
29:47
Speaker 1: in city if you want credit, Name in city if
29:50
Speaker 1: you want credit, and that is that. Have a wonderful
29:56
Speaker 1: rest of your Friday. It's a final Friday. Days of
30:00
Speaker 1: a baseball regular season. That's almost over. We got some
30:03
Speaker 1: college football today and then the big weekend. We'll cover
30:08
Speaker 1: it all as we go forward. But have a great,
30:11
Speaker 1: glorious rest of your Friday. We will talk to you
30:14
Speaker 1: next time. And as Danny g would say, Asta pasta
30:20
Speaker 1: or is it later, skater, Aloha means goodbye riva, don
30:26
Speaker 1: jay or bye bye see. That's what Dick and Dayton says.
30:30
Speaker 1: Bye bye, gotta murder, I gotta go