Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Benny the Butcher

Transcript

The Fifth Hour: Benny the Butcher · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Kubbooms.
0:02
Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
0:05
Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
0:09
Speaker 2: of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
0:12
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
0:15
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, the Clearinghouse of
0:19
Speaker 2: Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
0:23
Speaker 2: with Ben Maller starts right now.
0:29
Speaker 1: In the air eywhere for the final time in the
0:35
Speaker 1: month of October, the year twenty twenty five. It is
0:38
Speaker 1: I Ben Mahler. We have stumbled and bumbled our way
0:43
Speaker 1: inside the Fifth Hour Podcast Studio, the remote podcast studio,
0:48
Speaker 1: as we hang out here together enjoying the fun that
0:53
Speaker 1: is weekend podcasting. And today is a rather big day,
0:59
Speaker 1: as not only do you have that little Halloween thing,
1:02
Speaker 1: you got the little Halloween thing. And then tonight is
1:05
Speaker 1: this the last night of the Major League Baseball season?
1:10
Speaker 1: Developing Hot Dot Dot Dot the Dodgers and the Toronto
1:15
Speaker 1: Blue Jays. It is own like Donkey Kong from the
1:20
Speaker 1: stadium formerly known as SkyDome. You've got Yoshinobu Yamamoto for
1:25
Speaker 1: the Dodgers favorite the Dodgers are favored to force a
1:29
Speaker 1: Game seven in the World Series. They open up a
1:32
Speaker 1: minus one thirty five favorite. They are a little higher
1:36
Speaker 1: than that. And where is the money. It's it's Yoshinobu
1:39
Speaker 1: Yamato versus the Gossman, Kevin Gossman, the gas Man Gossman.
1:44
Speaker 1: That is the matchup at the building known now as
1:46
Speaker 1: the Rogers Center. And most of the cash, most of
1:52
Speaker 1: the cash is on the Dodgers. The tickets a little
1:54
Speaker 1: more split, although the Dodgers have the edge there. So
1:58
Speaker 1: that is the matchup tonight, and we will have a
2:00
Speaker 1: complete Malar monologue, win loser, draw. Of course there will
2:05
Speaker 1: be no draw, but we'll have that on the Saturday
2:07
Speaker 1: edition of the Fifth Hour. One of the as we
2:10
Speaker 1: said last week me and Danny g it's one of
2:12
Speaker 1: the blessings and the curses of doing a weekend podcast.
2:15
Speaker 1: You have a platform because that'll be old news. Whatever
2:17
Speaker 1: happens tonight will be old news by the time we
2:20
Speaker 1: get to the next Ben Mahler show. Not to get
2:24
Speaker 1: too inside radio, how we make the sausage. You do
2:28
Speaker 1: not want to know how we make the sausage. But
2:30
Speaker 1: as far as Halloween is concerned, which is the main
2:34
Speaker 1: event today, the World series. People will be out doing
2:37
Speaker 1: things and all that stuff. Every Halloween, I go down
2:41
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole and I look back and say, well,
2:43
Speaker 1: where did this all begin? Like what is the origin
2:46
Speaker 1: of Halloween? Like how far back does it go? It's
2:50
Speaker 1: got pagan origins. We're reminded of that every time we
2:55
Speaker 1: look back at what happened. But really it's the se
3:00
Speaker 1: Eltse who we should thank for what Halloween is today.
3:04
Speaker 1: The ancient people now they live where modern day Ireland
3:09
Speaker 1: is in northern France, and the UK's Halloween pagan roots
3:15
Speaker 1: go back thousands of years to the Celtic fire festival.
3:21
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's like the one they have in
3:23
Speaker 1: outside Vegas. Well, the fire festival, that's something else, that's
3:28
Speaker 1: the daisy something electric light thing. The fire festival was
3:32
Speaker 1: the one that was a total disaster and made a
3:34
Speaker 1: Netflix documentary back in the day. Anyway, So they recognized
3:38
Speaker 1: the end of the harvest season and the start of
3:40
Speaker 1: the new year on November first, and so they had
3:44
Speaker 1: this big festival. The pagans wore costumes and they lit fires,
3:48
Speaker 1: and they had to do that because they wanted to
3:50
Speaker 1: keep the bad spirits away. You do not want bad
3:53
Speaker 1: spirits to mess around with you. And so that was that,
3:57
Speaker 1: and they believed that on October thirty first, today the
4:02
Speaker 1: dead returned. The dead return to walk among the living.
4:07
Speaker 1: He's zombieish. Wouldn't that be amazing? Though? Imagine if all
4:10
Speaker 1: the people that have died like somehow came back and
4:14
Speaker 1: it would be like great to see them, But then
4:16
Speaker 1: they'd be like, well, what did you do to my sofa?
4:19
Speaker 1: You know, I was like my mom she came back
4:22
Speaker 1: and being then you messed up my kitchen. That's not
4:25
Speaker 1: my mom. You're not here, but I'm back. But I know,
4:28
Speaker 1: I I know. I'm glad you're back. But I didn't
4:30
Speaker 1: think you'd mind. You didn't think you were going to
4:33
Speaker 1: come back. I don't, I don't know. I mean, what
4:35
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? Uh? And all that
4:38
Speaker 1: and uh and so there you go. Yeah, anyway, moving
4:42
Speaker 1: on from that, let's get to the meat of the
4:44
Speaker 1: matter on this edition of the Fifth Hour podcast, and
4:49
Speaker 1: that would be I got two things for you, and
4:52
Speaker 1: then there's some other stuff. I got Benny the Butcher
4:55
Speaker 1: and chicken soup in a way. In a way, chicken soup,
5:00
Speaker 1: So let's start with this. First of all, again, Happy Halloween, Oh,
5:05
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween. So you reach a certain agent. I guess
5:10
Speaker 1: I'm at that age now. I would assume I'm at
5:12
Speaker 1: that age somewhere between. I still know the words to
5:16
Speaker 1: every Month to Oh Monsters. I know that. And then
5:21
Speaker 1: I look at the candy bowl and I think, boy,
5:24
Speaker 1: if I eat that, I'm going to gain all the
5:26
Speaker 1: weight I lost back, all of it. Just one bowl
5:29
Speaker 1: of delicious butterfinger and Baby Ruth and Snickers bars and
5:32
Speaker 1: three Musketeers and it's all gone. And then you start
5:36
Speaker 1: to think that the Halloween costume, that's a young person's game, right,
5:41
Speaker 1: You got to be a kid to be in a
5:43
Speaker 1: Halloween costume, unless, of course, the costume finds you. Welcome
5:50
Speaker 1: to my world. That's right, mine did right there, in
5:56
Speaker 1: of all places, the kitchen at the Malor Mansion. Right.
6:00
Speaker 1: Let me repeat that for the back of the room there. Yeah,
6:04
Speaker 1: I found my Halloween costume because it slammed me down
6:10
Speaker 1: in many ways. So I was not at spirit Halloween.
6:14
Speaker 1: I was not working my way through all the polyester
6:17
Speaker 1: cowboys and vampire capes and the natty nurses and all
6:21
Speaker 1: that other stuff. I didn't brave Target. My wife likes Target.
6:25
Speaker 1: I'm more of a costco guy. I would go to Walmart,
6:29
Speaker 1: the endless aisles of synthetic rubber masks and scary fangs
6:35
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be Dracula and all that stuff. So no,
6:38
Speaker 1: my costume was homemade. It was hand crafted, really hand cut,
6:43
Speaker 1: really hand cut, if you want to get precise, because
6:46
Speaker 1: on this particular Halloween week, I became Benny the Lime Cook. Now,
6:51
Speaker 1: I do like to make I eat one meal a day,
6:54
Speaker 1: and I try to eat a good meal and the
6:55
Speaker 1: hearty meal, and that gets me through the rest of
6:57
Speaker 1: the day. And I don't need to eat three meals.
7:00
Speaker 1: One meal, save a little bit of money, try not
7:03
Speaker 1: to get any weight. I have a meal, I have
7:04
Speaker 1: a snack bowl. That's it. Boom, done, done done. Usually
7:07
Speaker 1: eat within half an hour to forty minutes, and the
7:10
Speaker 1: rest of the day I don't eat. Well. It turns
7:12
Speaker 1: out that Bennie the line cook Moonlight It's got a
7:15
Speaker 1: second job, must have gone to Express Pros because I
7:18
Speaker 1: got a second job as Benny the Butcher. That's right.
7:21
Speaker 1: So let's go back a few days. The Life of Maler,
7:25
Speaker 1: the Life of Mouth, that lunch is a singular event.
7:30
Speaker 1: My wife goes to work, she's not home. I'm by myself.
7:33
Speaker 1: It's me and Moxie, and I usually put Moxie outside
7:36
Speaker 1: because if Moxie's inside while I'm eating, Moxie wants to
7:39
Speaker 1: join the meal. And normally what I'll do is, if
7:42
Speaker 1: I have leftovers, I will then toss them to Moxie
7:45
Speaker 1: as an active goodwill. As an active goodwill, so I
7:50
Speaker 1: used to eat just like really terrible food. I still
7:52
Speaker 1: eat bad food on the weekends, but during the week
7:54
Speaker 1: I try to eat somewhat healthy. So on this particular day,
7:56
Speaker 1: I had grilled chicken, I had on a spit, we
8:02
Speaker 1: had rice. I had rice because I say wee, but
8:05
Speaker 1: I had rice, pineapple, love pineapple, some diced onion, and
8:10
Speaker 1: some bell pepper. The kind of meal that if you
8:13
Speaker 1: had told me when I was twenty years old, I
8:15
Speaker 1: would be eating when I'm the age i'm at now.
8:17
Speaker 1: I just said, you're full of crap. And it's also
8:19
Speaker 1: the kind of meal I think that if you're a nutritionist,
8:22
Speaker 1: you would put that on the GRAM and get a
8:24
Speaker 1: lot of clout right, a clean fuel and all that stuff.
8:27
Speaker 1: Put the eating healthy man look at me now, except
8:31
Speaker 1: my meal. Even though it sounded very healthy, it sounded
8:34
Speaker 1: very healthy, my meal was not clean false advertising. Now
8:39
Speaker 1: we could do a clash parody song, the meal fought
8:43
Speaker 1: back and the meal one, The meal fought back and
8:46
Speaker 1: the meal one. You see, I misjudged where my knife
8:51
Speaker 1: ended and the finger began, which is kind of similar
8:56
Speaker 1: to going to Arizona and misjudging where the cliff and
9:00
Speaker 1: and the grand Canyon begins. Hello, Hello, it doesn't end well. Now,
9:05
Speaker 1: if you ever have that split second where your brain
9:10
Speaker 1: lags behind. Have you ever had that? You know what
9:12
Speaker 1: I'm talking about? You think that kind that felt kind
9:15
Speaker 1: of weird. It didn't feel like it was supposed to feel.
9:19
Speaker 1: So I'm cutting the onion and I had that brain
9:24
Speaker 1: lag where it's like, what's going on with that? That
9:26
Speaker 1: didn't feel quite right, and so I thought, well, it
9:30
Speaker 1: must be the onion. Maybe it was a bad onion.
9:33
Speaker 1: I didn't examine the onion. I cut the onion, so
9:36
Speaker 1: I picked the onion up. At this point, I now
9:38
Speaker 1: am inspector gadget. I should update that reference. I am
9:42
Speaker 1: imagine me in a lab code. I'm working on CSI right,
9:47
Speaker 1: it's better than Inspector Gadget, although I like Inspector Gadget
9:50
Speaker 1: more than CSI. And only at this point in the
9:55
Speaker 1: story did I notice in my peripheral vision these little
10:01
Speaker 1: red drips drip, drip, drip. Now, this is the part
10:06
Speaker 1: of the story that is not for the faint of heart.
10:10
Speaker 1: It is not you see, at that moment, a simple
10:14
Speaker 1: chopping of the onion became a horror movie plot twist.
10:19
Speaker 1: It's not the onion's fault, it's not. There were no
10:22
Speaker 1: special effects. There was no current corn syrup or food
10:25
Speaker 1: dye or any of that, just my knuckle on my
10:28
Speaker 1: right hand auditioning for an upcoming Tarantino close up. Yes. So, now,
10:36
Speaker 1: later today, as the neighborhood kids parade around through their
10:39
Speaker 1: cute little costumes through the mean streets of the north Woods,
10:42
Speaker 1: dressed as princesses and pikachuw's and all the other stuff
10:47
Speaker 1: that I have no idea. Well, you go through the
10:50
Speaker 1: list of popular Halloween costumes and it's like, that's anime,
10:53
Speaker 1: that's anime, So what's anime? Just go with it, Just
10:56
Speaker 1: go with it. I'm old, I'm older than anime. I
10:59
Speaker 1: don't know that. I didn't grow up with anime. I
11:00
Speaker 1: grew up with the Looney Tunes. Well that year old
11:02
Speaker 1: you don't know what, you don't know what these things
11:04
Speaker 1: are as a bad job by you. So anyway, I
11:06
Speaker 1: will be the gentleman who will be waving from the
11:10
Speaker 1: driveway as I walk out to the car with the
11:13
Speaker 1: I have the new skin, I have the gauze wrapped
11:15
Speaker 1: around the hand like a mummy mall or the Mummy.
11:20
Speaker 1: And of course I lost the instructural manual. So my
11:24
Speaker 1: homemade costume is called stylish Bloodshed, Benny's Stylish Bloodshed. The
11:29
Speaker 1: authenticity of this, I'm telling you, is undeniable. It is
11:34
Speaker 1: absolutely un deniable. I didn't even need a sewing machine.
11:41
Speaker 1: I didn't. My mom was an epic sewer back in
11:44
Speaker 1: the day. But I didn't need my mom's old sewing machine.
11:47
Speaker 1: Just a chef's knife and a little spatula awareness and
11:52
Speaker 1: that's it. So somewhere off in the wild blue yonder,
11:57
Speaker 1: way out there in the wild blue yonder, wes Craven smiling.
12:00
Speaker 1: It's got a Cheshire cat smile from ear to ear
12:03
Speaker 1: hearing the story. Now, had I sliced just a millimeter,
12:08
Speaker 1: just a a millimeter more, you and I would be
12:12
Speaker 1: having a much different conversation right now. Instead of talking
12:17
Speaker 1: about what did happen was I just went over there?
12:22
Speaker 1: We would be talking dismemberment instead of a chunk of
12:26
Speaker 1: my flesh on my knuckle, on my pointer finger going
12:29
Speaker 1: away from this thick laceration you see. I then if
12:33
Speaker 1: that had been a dismemberment, I would have been the
12:36
Speaker 1: star of my own low budget remake, The Big Lebowski two,
12:40
Speaker 1: starring Ben Maller. This time the dude loses a digit.
12:44
Speaker 1: Forget the the severed toe in the shoe box. What's
12:49
Speaker 1: in the box? Now my finger? And this is the
12:54
Speaker 1: part where Brad Pitt, who looks really weird in that mustache,
12:57
Speaker 1: I SunUp the Dodger gameless week. It's very weird. This
13:00
Speaker 1: is where Brad Pitt comes in screaming what's in the box.
13:03
Speaker 1: I'd also like to point out Brad Pitt if you
13:05
Speaker 1: ever saw me, he said, ooh, you got a body
13:08
Speaker 1: for overnight talk radio. That's right, Brad, I do, Daddy.
13:12
Speaker 1: There's a bit of a malord metaphor in this story.
13:15
Speaker 1: Somewhere seems like there always is, always is a bit
13:19
Speaker 1: of a metaphor. So maybe it's about the hubris that
13:24
Speaker 1: I was so confident in my ability to multitask that
13:28
Speaker 1: I tried to make lunch and play iron chef at
13:31
Speaker 1: the same time while watching while watching the World series.
13:36
Speaker 1: It might be about my age, the way reflexes kind
13:39
Speaker 1: of slowed down, and the knives don't forget and all
13:42
Speaker 1: that stuff. However, I don't think of myself as that old.
13:46
Speaker 1: I know mathematically if you had told me when I
13:48
Speaker 1: was twelve years old, you said, how old, Well that's
13:50
Speaker 1: old man, You're a relic. You're really old. Or maybe
13:55
Speaker 1: it's about the metaphor is about Halloween itself, and we
14:00
Speaker 1: spend so many you're watching horror movies and all this
14:04
Speaker 1: stuff and trying to get those fake scares, only to
14:06
Speaker 1: find that at some point the real ones are sitting
14:09
Speaker 1: there very quietly off to the side in the kitchen, waiting,
14:15
Speaker 1: just waiting for you to reach for the cutting board
14:17
Speaker 1: and the very sharp knife. And the whole thing reminds
14:21
Speaker 1: me of every over confident, blowhard radio host who thinks
14:27
Speaker 1: that they can juggle too many hot takes at once
14:31
Speaker 1: and you end up burning the microphones one slip and
14:34
Speaker 1: suddenly you're bleeding ratings. In that case, but that the
14:37
Speaker 1: knife doesn't care if you've done this a thousand times before, right,
14:41
Speaker 1: they don't care. So again later tonight on Halloween. Later tonight,
14:47
Speaker 1: when I visit my lovely and sweet niece and nephew
14:50
Speaker 1: for their Halloween festival, I will be the man with
14:54
Speaker 1: the bandage, hand the new skin, and then the bandage
14:58
Speaker 1: walking PSA for life safety call me the middle aged Frankenstein,
15:04
Speaker 1: and I will be held together by gauze and regret
15:08
Speaker 1: that I didn't pay closer attention while chopping the onion.
15:12
Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be some kids if I take the
15:14
Speaker 1: gauze off that will scream, oh my god, what happened
15:17
Speaker 1: to that man. I'll smile. I'll smile at them, and
15:20
Speaker 1: I'll tell them kids, this is a teachable moment. This
15:24
Speaker 1: is a public service announcement from your friend on the radio.
15:29
Speaker 1: I used to be the king of PSA. Is what happens.
15:32
Speaker 1: This is what happens when you don't respect the onion.
15:37
Speaker 1: I'm telling you respect the almighty onion. Now the good
15:40
Speaker 1: news again, my finger is still attached. The bad news,
15:44
Speaker 1: the chunk of my flesh is gone. The ego is
15:49
Speaker 1: not attached as much a homemade costume. I would tell
15:53
Speaker 1: you though, this homemade costume unforgettable, unforgettable. After all, there
16:00
Speaker 1: is nothing, nothing that says Halloween like the authentic droplets
16:09
Speaker 1: of blood on your apron and a story that begins
16:14
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a quiet lunch by myself,
16:19
Speaker 1: and then you'll never believe what happened next. You'll never
16:26
Speaker 1: ever believe it. All right, turn the page on that
16:29
Speaker 1: we go to the great radio Pilgrimage in sin City.
16:36
Speaker 1: That's right, beautiful sin City. So people go to Vegas
16:42
Speaker 1: to gamble, to take part in all kinds of debauchery,
16:47
Speaker 1: to party, to lose all sense of time and place.
16:51
Speaker 1: We know that I go to Vegas three or four
16:55
Speaker 1: times a year. Now. I went there to renew this
16:58
Speaker 1: last weekend there, to renew my vows with radio, or
17:04
Speaker 1: at least to confirm that the almighty, all powerful, omnipresent
17:09
Speaker 1: magic Radio Box still exists on the big stage. When
17:15
Speaker 1: it seems like most people get their content from TikTok
17:21
Speaker 1: and Instagram and they get to that social media dopamine
17:25
Speaker 1: slot machine going and all that stuff, you realize that
17:28
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a rig game, right, that social media. Yeah,
17:31
Speaker 1: everyone's on there, but how many people are active on
17:34
Speaker 1: there and whatnot. So it turns out that there's a
17:40
Speaker 1: lot there. The Magic Radio Box still exists and it
17:44
Speaker 1: is great. So this past weekend, again I found myself
17:47
Speaker 1: bleary eyed and heavily over the caffeinated with those caffeine supplements.
17:52
Speaker 1: I got at CBS doing the Bend Maler Show, The
17:56
Speaker 1: Bend Maler Show from the world class iHeart Studios on
18:01
Speaker 1: Fremont Street. I am blown away. I said it last time,
18:06
Speaker 1: and I went in there again, and I want to
18:08
Speaker 1: thank Ice, who's a big DJ star. She knows Flavor Flaves,
18:12
Speaker 1: She's a big deal in Vegas and she kind of
18:14
Speaker 1: runs that place at night. She came in there and
18:17
Speaker 1: we were hanging out and it was cool. Nice to
18:20
Speaker 1: see her again and anyway, moving on with sorry. So
18:25
Speaker 1: I was there at the Iheartstudos Fremont Street now Fremont again.
18:29
Speaker 1: For those of you that have not been to Vegas,
18:32
Speaker 1: and for those of you that have been but haven't
18:34
Speaker 1: been lately, Fremont Street is what happens when the civilized
18:39
Speaker 1: world decides it's no longer interested in daylight. It is
18:44
Speaker 1: a real life freak show. There is no admission. You
18:49
Speaker 1: don't have to pay for admission. You just go through
18:51
Speaker 1: some metal detectors. It's a freak show with free admission.
18:54
Speaker 1: It's a human zoo. And unlike the San Diego Zoo,
18:57
Speaker 1: where you might see a hippo or a heeling monster
19:02
Speaker 1: or any other goblin that might be there, No, no, no,
19:04
Speaker 1: it turns out that when you go to Fremont Street,
19:07
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay. It's a human zoo and
19:09
Speaker 1: it's where you can see everything from grown men wearing
19:14
Speaker 1: diapers to women wearing pasties who probably shouldn't be wearing pasties.
19:19
Speaker 1: You know, we should maybe had one less cheeseburger. And
19:22
Speaker 1: I'm the last guy to talk. And then Elvis impersonators
19:25
Speaker 1: up the wazoo a little bit of everything. I got
19:28
Speaker 1: cover bands, there's music, there's zip lines. It is sensory overload,
19:34
Speaker 1: is what it is. It's also humanity's clearance rack. It is.
19:38
Speaker 1: So I wrap up the overnight show in Vegas, and
19:47
Speaker 1: I wrap it up. I wrap it up. It's like
19:50
Speaker 1: three in the morning. Right, Wait, this this works. I
19:55
Speaker 1: wrap it up, and I have some other business I
19:56
Speaker 1: have to take care of, so I can't just leave
19:58
Speaker 1: right away. But that's the witching hour at three am.
20:02
Speaker 1: That's the witching hour for the degenerate and the dreamer
20:07
Speaker 1: in that part of Vegas, Old Vegas and then or
20:10
Speaker 1: downtown base what you're gonna call it at locals, I
20:13
Speaker 1: think say Downtown, Others say Fremont, whatever, it doesn't really matter.
20:18
Speaker 1: You get the point. So, because the job requires a
20:23
Speaker 1: certain level of lunacy when you do this kind of work,
20:28
Speaker 1: I drag my fat ass and I took my lovely
20:32
Speaker 1: wife over to New York, New York, down on the
20:34
Speaker 1: Strip for the Power Trip Morning show from Kfan in Minneapolis, Kfan, Kfan. Now,
20:43
Speaker 1: if you live outside the Twin Cities, and by the way,
20:45
Speaker 1: my hand is raised, I do live outside the Twin Cities,
20:47
Speaker 1: you might not grasp the gravitational pull of the Power Trip. Well, Ben,
20:53
Speaker 1: it's just a little morning show, It's all it is.
20:56
Speaker 1: Don't embellish it. We don't need puffery. What is wrong
20:59
Speaker 1: with you? I don't do that. Okay, time out. This
21:04
Speaker 1: is not puffery. This is not embellishment. It is not
21:07
Speaker 1: I promise you I will let you know next time
21:10
Speaker 1: I go down that road. So the morning show, the
21:13
Speaker 1: Power Trip. The big stars the players are Chris hockey,
21:17
Speaker 1: or Hawkeye as we call hockey. His nicknames is the
21:20
Speaker 1: Hawk Corey and then Meat Sauce, whose real name is Paul,
21:24
Speaker 1: but he goes by the name Meat Sauce. And so
21:26
Speaker 1: these guys, Hawk Corey and Meat Sauce are the three
21:33
Speaker 1: Musketeers of Minnesota mornings. One part sports, one part stand
21:37
Speaker 1: up comedy, and one part group therapy. And by any
21:44
Speaker 1: measurement and by every metric, they are a phenomena. They
21:49
Speaker 1: are and tip of the headphones from one radio guide
21:52
Speaker 1: to another, and they're very kind. They liked the overnight
21:54
Speaker 1: show where they'll lead in on the network. They carry
21:57
Speaker 1: us overnight on Kfan, And to put in perspective about
22:02
Speaker 1: how bonkers this whole thing was, there were listeners and
22:08
Speaker 1: not just a few listeners that plan their vacations around
22:13
Speaker 1: these guys. The show is simulcast across the iHeart and
22:18
Speaker 1: a bunch of iHeart stations in Minnesota. It's also streamed online.
22:22
Speaker 1: They've got a massive following rivaling you know, you think
22:27
Speaker 1: about like some football teams that have no fans, like
22:29
Speaker 1: a small market NFL franchise. And on this particular weekend,
22:35
Speaker 1: they were broadcasting in Vegas and that's how I, the
22:39
Speaker 1: overnight Vampire from Fox Sports Radio, ended up in their orbit,
22:44
Speaker 1: and I had actually met Hawk. I think we talked
22:47
Speaker 1: about this. I met Hawk a little while back thanks
22:51
Speaker 1: to some Mallard Militia listeners in Minnesota who are big
22:53
Speaker 1: fans of both shows who connected us the last time
22:57
Speaker 1: I was in Vegas and Hawk happened to be there. Now,
23:00
Speaker 1: originally the plan was when I had seen Hawk the
23:03
Speaker 1: last time, I said, oh, yeah, he guess he works
23:05
Speaker 1: for the Vikings. He does some of the radio stuff
23:06
Speaker 1: for the Minnesota Vikings. So I figured, well, the plan
23:09
Speaker 1: would be to hang out when the Vikings played the
23:12
Speaker 1: Chargers at Sofi Stadium, that I'd go there, I'd prepare
23:15
Speaker 1: for my radio show. I'd get to see the quick
23:18
Speaker 1: five minute hey, how you're doing good, to catch up
23:21
Speaker 1: with you and all that stuff. So that was the plan.
23:23
Speaker 1: The Vikings weren't time to play the Chargers last Thursday,
23:26
Speaker 1: or I guess two thursdays ago, because last night we
23:28
Speaker 1: had the Ravens absolutely dismember the Dolphins. Back to the story,
23:35
Speaker 1: so you know, here we are the Chargers and Vikings,
23:38
Speaker 1: two teams that could lose a coin toss with a
23:40
Speaker 1: Magnet and I was going to go to the game
23:43
Speaker 1: and Hawk had text me a couple of weeks earlier.
23:45
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, you know, I think I forget exactly
23:49
Speaker 1: what he said. We said we're going to be in Vegas.
23:50
Speaker 1: I think he said something like the guys want to
23:52
Speaker 1: meet you on the show. And so he invited me
23:55
Speaker 1: on their show, and I could not resist. I love radio,
23:59
Speaker 1: and I've heard so many crazy things about how good
24:02
Speaker 1: the show is and how popular the show is and
24:04
Speaker 1: all this stuff. The Minnesota audience is just different. It
24:07
Speaker 1: just cuts different. And you guys had hyped these guys
24:11
Speaker 1: up on Power Trip for a while. People were prank
24:13
Speaker 1: calling us with meat sauce, saying meat sauce and all
24:16
Speaker 1: that stuff. So you guys had been telling me that
24:19
Speaker 1: this was the show, the Power Trip. This was it right,
24:22
Speaker 1: This is like the Beatles of bloviating. So I wanted
24:26
Speaker 1: to see with all of the gusto I have or
24:30
Speaker 1: the what it was in living color. I wanted to
24:33
Speaker 1: witness it the hullaballoo. So there I was. I made
24:37
Speaker 1: a last minute trip to Las Vegas. Now my wife
24:41
Speaker 1: was with me, and she asked me as we were
24:44
Speaker 1: leaving Fremont Street, the iHeart Studios, going to the hotel
24:47
Speaker 1: for a second and going to the event. She asked me,
24:49
Speaker 1: She's like, well, you know who's going to be there,
24:52
Speaker 1: Who's gonna be on hand? Do I need to get
24:54
Speaker 1: dressed up for this? As is anyone going to be there?
24:56
Speaker 1: And I told her, I said, listen, this popular show,
25:00
Speaker 1: it's a local show. They're sixteen hundred miles or whatever
25:04
Speaker 1: it is away from the Twin Cities. It's four in
25:07
Speaker 1: the morning. Just don't expect much. I know it's a
25:10
Speaker 1: popular show, but who's going to show up here at
25:13
Speaker 1: this time? It was four in the morning. And so
25:16
Speaker 1: you know what happens when you assume, right, you know,
25:19
Speaker 1: we all know what happens when you assume. So I
25:22
Speaker 1: parked the car, I pay my twenty five dollars for parking.
25:26
Speaker 1: I'm paying seventy dollars in Vegas for a little over
25:28
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. Ended up paying seventy dollars to park
25:32
Speaker 1: the car. You know how much you paid to park
25:34
Speaker 1: the car for? I don't know. Thirty years up until
25:36
Speaker 1: about ten years ago, nothing, nothing. It was free. Everywhere
25:41
Speaker 1: was free. If they've charged for parking, you didn't go
25:44
Speaker 1: you said you ignored it. That's it anyway, So I
25:47
Speaker 1: assumed there would be very few people there. I'm walking
25:49
Speaker 1: through New York, New York, after paying, you know, getting
25:52
Speaker 1: ripped off for the parking, and I was waiting with
25:55
Speaker 1: baited breath to find tumbleweeds to the right direct from Russia,
26:03
Speaker 1: an invasive species. And I thought there'd be a few chainsmoking,
26:08
Speaker 1: probably older elderly women, and a few guys, maybe in
26:13
Speaker 1: wheelchairs with oxygen, and there'd be some other guys that
26:18
Speaker 1: were heavily intoxicated, some insomniacs clinging the slot machines. Instead,
26:25
Speaker 1: I found something that I still marvel at. There were
26:30
Speaker 1: hundreds of people in Minnesota, purple jerseys, hats. I didn't
26:40
Speaker 1: see any face paint. There might have been some guy
26:42
Speaker 1: in the back. I think he fell asleep. There was
26:45
Speaker 1: a buzz kind of sounded like that, kind of sounded
26:50
Speaker 1: like that that could light the strip up. It was
26:53
Speaker 1: not just a crowd, it was a congregation. I was like, WHOA, Like,
26:58
Speaker 1: I've done Mallard meet greets, and we get good crowds.
27:01
Speaker 1: We get sometimes we don't get good growd with the
27:03
Speaker 1: smallest one we ever had was in Wisconsin. It was
27:06
Speaker 1: last minute. It was Appleton, Wisconsin. We do pretty well
27:09
Speaker 1: in Boston. We've done well. In La we've done well.
27:12
Speaker 1: We've had good turnouts in Minnesota. By the way, was
27:16
Speaker 1: amazing when we did the malar meat greet there in Minnesota.
27:18
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. It was a lot
27:19
Speaker 1: of fun. So anyway, I was like, okay, so there
27:23
Speaker 1: are all these people. It was not just a crowd.
27:25
Speaker 1: It was like, like I said, it was bigger than that.
27:27
Speaker 1: You don't get that in radio much anymore, in an
27:31
Speaker 1: era where the corporate machine is worried about one thing
27:35
Speaker 1: and one thing only the bottom line. That's all that matters.
27:39
Speaker 1: And the goal of many of these mega media companies
27:42
Speaker 1: is not a good product. They want a product you'll
27:46
Speaker 1: listen to. It doesn't have to be good. The main
27:49
Speaker 1: goal is just nickel and dime everything low ball here.
27:54
Speaker 1: You know, they can't give you that there all that stuff.
27:57
Speaker 1: Now we know that every one's chasing clicks and the
28:01
Speaker 1: algorithm and all that. But these guys have created a
28:04
Speaker 1: real a real community, I guess is the word I'll
28:09
Speaker 1: use again as something that is tangible. And so this
28:14
Speaker 1: was a chicken soup for the Broadcast Soul chicken soup
28:18
Speaker 1: for the Broadcast Soul. It was like bone broth that
28:21
Speaker 1: went right into my bones. And it reminded me why
28:25
Speaker 1: I got in to this racket years ago in the
28:30
Speaker 1: first place, when I decided to go down that road,
28:32
Speaker 1: and I could have been a doctor or a lawyer,
28:35
Speaker 1: some kind of Wall Street guy, and I went down
28:37
Speaker 1: this road, so I got in this racket. And that
28:40
Speaker 1: the connection, the bond, the live wire between a microphone
28:45
Speaker 1: and a fan base, that just feels something. There's something there,
28:50
Speaker 1: the communal aspect of it, that you're all listening to
28:52
Speaker 1: the same thing at the same time, you're all part
28:54
Speaker 1: of it. So we're pretty lucky. We're pretty lucky you
28:57
Speaker 1: and I because we have that in the Mallard Militia.
29:00
Speaker 1: We have that. These guys found it in Morning Drive
29:03
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, and congratulations, good job by them. They don't
29:06
Speaker 1: need Meda corasulate them. They've done a great job. Moving
29:10
Speaker 1: on with the story, the Power Trip Fellas from Minnesota.
29:14
Speaker 1: The Power Trip Fellas. They even allowed me access behind
29:18
Speaker 1: the velvet ropes to take part in the crown jewel
29:23
Speaker 1: of their show, the segment of segments every Friday. It's
29:26
Speaker 1: the Initials Game. Well, what the f is the Initials Game?
29:30
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is for the uninitiated, and
29:34
Speaker 1: I was part of that. It's kind of like Jeopardy
29:36
Speaker 1: Cross with Wheel of Fortune, only a little bit louder,
29:39
Speaker 1: hopefully funnier, and very competitive, much more competitive than those shows.
29:45
Speaker 1: Now they've been doing this for years. I was on
29:48
Speaker 1: episode six hundred. They have their own standalone podcast on iHeart.
29:52
Speaker 1: The podcast allows you to play along the Initials game,
29:57
Speaker 1: and so this has become a regional phenomenon. They actually
30:00
Speaker 1: sell the home version online. They sell a fair amount
30:04
Speaker 1: of copies around the Upper Midwest. And there's really no pressure, right,
30:08
Speaker 1: I mean, here am I here? I am rather here.
30:12
Speaker 1: I am just showing up, you know, I'm the guest
30:14
Speaker 1: and all that. And I actually practiced. The guys told
30:17
Speaker 1: me they wanted me to be on this, and so
30:19
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I'll do it. I'll practice. And
30:21
Speaker 1: so I went in the car and I turned on
30:23
Speaker 1: their podcast and I listened and I was yapping away
30:26
Speaker 1: talking about you know whatever, and you know, kind of
30:30
Speaker 1: playing along. And sure enough, I practiced, and when it
30:34
Speaker 1: was showtime the lights came on, I ended up surrounded
30:38
Speaker 1: by savants. Hawk and Meat Sauce were like Mozart and
30:42
Speaker 1: Da Vinci, except they had a buzzer, which was their name,
30:46
Speaker 1: and they rattled off answers before I could even process
30:51
Speaker 1: the first clue boom, and I was shut out early.
30:56
Speaker 1: I was shut out. I'm not going to sit here
30:58
Speaker 1: and do revisions history. But redemption came in the bonus
31:03
Speaker 1: round and the initials were gl and I got Great Lakes.
31:08
Speaker 1: That was me. They didn't give it to me. They
31:10
Speaker 1: didn't hand it to me. Nobody told me what the
31:12
Speaker 1: word was. I scored Great Lakes. Mission accomplished. So after
31:17
Speaker 1: the show, the many fans there that were not there
31:21
Speaker 1: to see me, they were there to hang out with
31:22
Speaker 1: the power Trip. They wanted a little FaceTime after the event,
31:27
Speaker 1: and many of them had Again, I just want to
31:29
Speaker 1: stress how crazy this is. These people flew out to
31:32
Speaker 1: La to watch the Vikings play the Chargers. It then
31:39
Speaker 1: drove all night from in the hood in Inglewood and
31:43
Speaker 1: up no good. So they drove all night from Inglewood
31:48
Speaker 1: near Lax through the California desert just to be there
31:53
Speaker 1: after watching their Vikings get mollywopped by the Chargers and
31:59
Speaker 1: they weren't chasing fame or prizes. They were just chasing
32:03
Speaker 1: that bond between a listener and the radio show. And
32:07
Speaker 1: I did have a chance to talk to some of
32:09
Speaker 1: these people. You know who you are. If you're listening
32:11
Speaker 1: right now, you might remember our conversation. It is interesting
32:15
Speaker 1: to note that a few of the people said that
32:17
Speaker 1: they were just in Vegas for the morning show at
32:19
Speaker 1: the Power Trip. They were then planning on driving back
32:22
Speaker 1: to la because apparently the and I didn't check the
32:26
Speaker 1: Timberwolves and the Lakers played the game, so they were
32:30
Speaker 1: planning on sticking around to watch that game. So okay,
32:35
Speaker 1: and met I didn't write any notes down, but I
32:38
Speaker 1: met the guy. One of the guys was there. He's
32:40
Speaker 1: sitting in the front on the right hand side. He
32:43
Speaker 1: works at a pepsi plant in Minnesota. He told me
32:47
Speaker 1: that the boys listen all the time, that they're fans
32:50
Speaker 1: of the show. They bottle pepsi products in Minnesota. There
32:54
Speaker 1: was another gentleman who was there with his wife who
32:58
Speaker 1: she's from Dallas. I remember he's from he's from Minnesota
33:04
Speaker 1: and now they're both in Denver. And unless unless what
33:10
Speaker 1: he told me was wrong or I made it up,
33:13
Speaker 1: in my head, I believe he had said, since he
33:14
Speaker 1: lives in Denver, he's had the Mallor. Now, what is
33:17
Speaker 1: the Mallor? I don't know what the malor is. The
33:21
Speaker 1: Mallor is one of the most delicious things you can
33:23
Speaker 1: possibly have. It is well. The Mallor is available at
33:27
Speaker 1: the Sportsbook Bar and Grill. There are multiple locations in
33:30
Speaker 1: the Greater Denver area. They are not paying me to
33:32
Speaker 1: tell you about this. I just want to get the
33:34
Speaker 1: word out. We spent so much time promoting the Ben
33:36
Speaker 1: Mallard chicken. Fingers often lost in the shuffle, Often lost
33:40
Speaker 1: in the shuffle. Is this The Sportsbook Bar and Grill
33:45
Speaker 1: has the Mallor. That's the name of it, the mallar
33:48
Speaker 1: buffalo chicken. They have the fried chicken breast tossed in
33:52
Speaker 1: hot sauce. They have the lettuce, the tomato. If you
33:55
Speaker 1: want to go that, I go, no tomato on mine.
33:57
Speaker 1: They have blue cheese. I don't need the blue cheese.
33:59
Speaker 1: I'm good. I don't need the blue cheese. But it's delicious.
34:02
Speaker 1: I recommend it, highly recommended it anyway. But despite that,
34:06
Speaker 1: again we lined up, met some fans, took some photos,
34:10
Speaker 1: and at the very end there, I was running on
34:12
Speaker 1: fumes and the caffeine had worn out. So I stumbled
34:16
Speaker 1: back to the hotel, which was off the strip, one
34:18
Speaker 1: of the few hotels that has free parking, very important
34:22
Speaker 1: much so I paid seventy five dollars for parking, and
34:25
Speaker 1: I didn't even have to pay at the hotel. We
34:27
Speaker 1: stayed at seventy five dollars. Went to the place we
34:31
Speaker 1: do the radio show at the iHeart Studios, had to
34:33
Speaker 1: pay for that. Well, you work for iHeart, you shouldn't
34:36
Speaker 1: have to pay. Okay, we'll let the people over there know.
34:38
Speaker 1: Let them know everything got turned off, including what happened
34:44
Speaker 1: in we just mentioned here the whole thing shut down
34:50
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So anyway, I just loved the
34:56
Speaker 1: tremendous vibe that was out there, and so I went
35:01
Speaker 1: back to the hotel. I crashed. The ears were still
35:04
Speaker 1: ringing with laughter and applause. And it wasn't about me.
35:07
Speaker 1: It was about the medium. A reminder that even in
35:10
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, when everyone's jaded and yours truly as well,
35:16
Speaker 1: and the algorithm is the almighty, all powerful king, it's
35:19
Speaker 1: not about how many people listen, it's how many people
35:22
Speaker 1: click and radio still has more than a pulsip. Radio
35:28
Speaker 1: to me is like baseball. For two hundred years, or
35:34
Speaker 1: at least one hundred and fifty, people have been writing
35:37
Speaker 1: stories that baseball's boring, baseball's dead, Baseball's not gonna make it.
35:42
Speaker 1: All of these stories right year after year, and it
35:46
Speaker 1: just keeps on going. It just keeps on going and
35:48
Speaker 1: going and going. And the funny thing is more people
35:51
Speaker 1: now want to do radio than they ever before in
35:54
Speaker 1: the history of radio. Radio has never been more popular
35:57
Speaker 1: than it is today. And What's My evidence podcast? Whether
36:01
Speaker 1: it's consuming podcasting like this show, or whether or not
36:04
Speaker 1: it is doing your own podcast. There are so many
36:07
Speaker 1: people that want to do podcasts and want to listen
36:09
Speaker 1: to podcasts. God bless them because this is a podcast.
36:12
Speaker 1: But get to the point, please. So the point is.
36:16
Speaker 1: The point is that when you're doing a podcast or
36:20
Speaker 1: listening to a podcast, it's radio without the radio. However,
36:24
Speaker 1: it's still radio. You're doing broadcast work, you're doing spoken word.
36:29
Speaker 2: Now.
36:29
Speaker 1: I know some of the podcasts are on video and
36:31
Speaker 1: some of the radio shows are on video. The point is,
36:34
Speaker 1: though the essence of it, the ethos of it, is
36:37
Speaker 1: that it is a audio program. That you don't have
36:42
Speaker 1: to sit there and watch the show. You can. You
36:46
Speaker 1: can do what you want, right, You can do what
36:47
Speaker 1: you want, and so listen. Vegas just has its own sound,
36:53
Speaker 1: of course, is the slot machines, the sirens, the constant
36:58
Speaker 1: hum people trying to win something, to get out of
37:03
Speaker 1: a deep dark place. However, tucked inside a casino at
37:08
Speaker 1: New York, New York, at dawn, I saw something better.
37:15
Speaker 1: I saw something better. There were a bunch of proud Minnesotans,
37:18
Speaker 1: Minnesota and Ice, proving that when the right voices come
37:22
Speaker 1: through the speakers, people still show up. And they weren't
37:27
Speaker 1: there for a jackpot because nobody won that. They were
37:31
Speaker 1: there for a connection. They were there for a connection,
37:35
Speaker 1: and it was pretty freaking cool. It really was. All Right,
37:39
Speaker 1: we'll leave you on that note. We'll see what happens
37:41
Speaker 1: tonight with the Dodgers. We should have a very Dodger
37:46
Speaker 1: centric fifth hour. I will put together some Mallard monologues
37:50
Speaker 1: after the game, and we'll come in here early tomorrow
37:55
Speaker 1: on Saturday morning, the first day of November, and we'll
37:59
Speaker 1: cobble together a malamool I hopefully Danny will be with me.
38:02
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he's Halloween weekend. He might be out
38:04
Speaker 1: of town. I don't know, but there it is. All right.
38:06
Speaker 1: We'll put the baby to bed, have a wonderful, gious
38:10
Speaker 1: rest of your Halloween. We'll see what happens with the
38:13
Speaker 1: Dodgers and Jays tonight, and I we'll catch you next
38:17
Speaker 1: time later, skater asta pasta. See that's see, Danny, that's
38:25
Speaker 1: the part, Danny. That's the part where we end this
38:28
Speaker 1: right here. See this is the end part. Yeah, that's
38:30
Speaker 1: it right there, we end it. Yeah, that's right. Okay,
38:32
Speaker 1: hit that that what you might call yeah, hit to
38:35
Speaker 1: what you mightna call it? Got a murder. I gotta go,
38:38
Speaker 1: thank you, okay, bye bye