Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Nerds, the Floor Is Lava

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The Fifth Hour: Nerds, the Floor Is Lava · 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 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. Wow to 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.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: In the air everywhere The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Mahler and Danny g Radio A Happy Friday to you.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: It is the beginning of the weekend. But the Audio
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Sweatshop does not stop. We produce fresh audio every single day.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Here of a new podcast on Saturday, another one on Sunday.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But here we are together on this podcast. Today we
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: have the Squiggly Zigzags and the flour is Lava. We'll
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: get to those, but first, it is National Handbag Day today.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I do not own a handbag. My wife owns many.
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  Speaker 1: And it turns out that the handbag or the purse
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: goes all the way back, all the way back to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: way way back in time. In fact, the first recorded
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: it goes back to prehistory. The first purse recorded in
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: history belonged to osi Otzi the Iceman. Atzi the Iceman,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: who lived between thirty four hundred and thirty one hundred
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  Speaker 1: BC between what's now Austria and Italy. So if you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: need an ice, you went to Ozzi the Iceman in
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that area right around Austria and Italy. And apparently he
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: was not alone. The historians I filled down this rabbit
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  Speaker 1: hole and they actually said that in the beginning, back
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in those days, mostly dudes carried purses because they needed
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: access to the coins. That's money was coins, and the
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  Speaker 1: purse became a status symbol for men, the man purse,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: which apparently is back now for some dudes like the person,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: but he goes way way back. And obviously over time
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: women have hijacked the man purse and made it their
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: own and they became I guess it was like the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: seventeen late seventeen hundreds. Many women I carried them, no
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: men carried them. So anyway, National Handbag Day, so go
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: out and buy a handbag. So I wanted to follow up.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I did the Overnight show, and the way this works
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: is I do the show and then I kind of
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: decompressed for a little bit, and then I leave the studio,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the remote studio, and then I walk away, and then
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I try to collect my thoughts on what I want
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: to talk about because I have to do the podcast.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: To do the podcast, I'm contractually obligated to the podcast.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And so I wandered away, and I walked back into
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the remote studio, and I sat in the chair and
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I jotted down a few bullet points and some things,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and then said, you know, I don't think I'm done
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: yapping about the baseball game. And there's something that I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: missed on the overnight show that I meant to get
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to that I didn't get to. And I thought, well,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: this is the fifth hour, and the whole point of
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the fifth hour is to follow up on things that
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I could have or should have talked about during the week.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: So anyway, get to the point, please. So I have
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: some more thoughts about the Dodger of Phillies series, which
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: ended yesterday, and it was very stressful. I didn't play
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: any of those games, but I'm trying to watch three
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: games at the same time because the Dodger game went
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to extra innings and so there's a lot going on.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to focus on the Phillies Dodgers game
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: because you know, not that much is going to change. However,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: this particular National League Divisional series of two is empirical
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: data that the obsession with stats has a fatal flaw.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: There's a soft underbelly. The three ring binder crowd got
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: absolutely pants in broad daylight. All the spreadsheets, all the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: AI expected outcomes, all the smug process over results lectures
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: from the super nerds, and all all that went call
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Bluey on a sun soaked day at Dodgers Stadium. Now
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: we saw actual, honest, the goodest, I'm not making this up,
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  Speaker 1: unpredictable baseball. The Phillies followed the binder of numbers perfectly
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: checked all the boxes, right. What was the game plan
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: for the Philadelphia Phillies. Don't let sho Heo Tani beat
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you check he's the Dodgers' top player. They checked that box,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: get into that horrible Dodger bullpen. They blow check that box,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: control game script check check check check check check. They
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: checked all the boxes, all the boxes in Philadelphia, and
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  Speaker 1: yet they still today are cleaning out their locker and
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: packing their bags for Cancun because they forgot one it
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  Speaker 1: cheap bit seat, tiny weeny. Inconvenient detail, the sport of
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  Speaker 1: baseball is not played on a laptop. Oh what a bummer.
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  Speaker 1: It's played by nervous humans with gloves and a heartbeat
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: that spikes up when they're playing in front of fifty
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: thousand screaming lunatics. The three true outcomes crowd, we all
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: know who they are. Home run, walk, strikeout. They got
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  Speaker 1: their little fantasy land shattered. It was shattered. Boom goes
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: to the dynamite. Because when you live and die by
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the measurable outcomes, there's these people like to tell us
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you're banking on everything going exactly right. Now, before I
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: go forward, let me tell you something. I actually don't
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: hate analytics. I think everything in reasonable portions is fine.
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  Speaker 1: The problem is the pendulum has swung so far in
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: this direction that it's insane. It's ridiculous right, and there's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: seemingly no way to dig out of it. Hopefully this
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: will be the start of something. I'm not someone that
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: believes that'll be the case, because again, you're banging on
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: everything going right. However, October does not care about your
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: feelings about expected batting average or your launch angel latch,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: angle bull craft or whatever that the Phillies did not
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: account for the old school thing, put the ball in play.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Put the ball in play, and this was how baseball
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: had been played for the first one hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 1: five years. That two hopper by Andy Paez in Game
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  Speaker 1: four and the eleventh inning, forty feet of nothing. He
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: hit the ball forty feet There should be shame he
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: was doing the postgame interview celebrating. His teammates ran out
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to party with him. That turned the series switch off.
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  Speaker 1: That's what happens when you force defenders to make plays
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  Speaker 1: under pressure. And yeah, this is a bit of hot
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: take validation. I've done monologues over the last couple of
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: years about this very thing. When you put the ball
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  Speaker 1: in play, crazy things happen, Unexpected things happen. The Phillies
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: built their game around avoiding that. The Dodgers, who also
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: play by the Algo rhythms, they're run by the almighty
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: alg rhythms. However, call it what you want is beneficiary
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: of dumb luck. Andy Piez did not have to hit
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a ball four hundred and fifty shot over the four
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty feet uarters over the pavilion. He hit
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: what many would describe the clinical term I believe in
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: baseball is a worm burner. He hit a worm burner
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: back to the mount. So what happens o'riyan Kirkering melts
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: down like butter airmails, the throw panic at the disco,
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  Speaker 1: Dodgers score, the Dodgers win, and the Phillies go check
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: travel plans with their travel agent. That's the human element
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the geekdom does not account for. They just don't. Do
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you agree, you're shaking your head, yes, good. You can't
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: code a panic attack into your war protection, your wins
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  Speaker 1: above replacement. This is why we rip the nerds. It's
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the very essence of what we're talking about, the epitome
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of what we're talking about. They don't trust the game
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  Speaker 1: to be messy. They don't factor that in. They're obsessed
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the people that run these big time teams. They's pretty
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: much every team in baseball. They're obsessed with controlling chaos,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: with reducing liability. Everything has to be down to a
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: decimal And the problem is baseball pushes real baseball when
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: you play the right way, it pushes and punishes the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: control freaks. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert all statistics and I
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  Speaker 1: was taught this years ago all statistics have outliers. Stats
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: aren't linear, They're not They have squiggly zigzags. Not the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: guy that used to call the Ben Maler Show twenty
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: years ago called zigzag. No, they have squiggly zigzags. October
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  Speaker 1: still rewards teams that make something out of nothing, that
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  Speaker 1: makes something happen. Put the ball in play, make a
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  Speaker 1: shortstop plant and throw on a tough hop that reliever,
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  Speaker 1: make him pick up the little dribbler with the sweaty
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  Speaker 1: palms and the nerves and the brain fart happens right.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Make a catcher block a pitch in the dirt with
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a runner coming home. That stuff's not necessarily glamorous, and
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't fit into the computer. However, I am of
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  Speaker 1: the dogma that it believes. I'm in the cult where
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: that still wins and that works. They didn't account, for example,
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  Speaker 1: the Phillies when they talked about, hey, we got a sapotani,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: we got to get to the Dodger bullpen, all this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: They did not account for Bryce Harper riding the vomit
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  Speaker 1: comet and batting two hundred. They didn't account for Kyle
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  Speaker 1: Schwarber hitting what a buck forty three a dugout full
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of dudes who I don't know where they're staring at
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  Speaker 1: the table. I don't know what they were doing. And
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: you know they were staring at their tablets. They were
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: staring at something, but they didn't do the thing they
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: were supposed to do at the time they was doing. Meanwhile,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers with a bullpen, which is a house of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: horse things that go bump in the night. The Dodger bullpen.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Everyone said, we said, it's a disaster, and it was.
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  Speaker 1: We were right. We won that take. It's a disaster.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: They did pitch the contact. But if you look at
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the numbers on the Dodger bullpen outside of Roku Suzaki,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the Dodger bullpen on an erea of five point five.
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  Speaker 1: All so, the Phillies got to the bullpen, they got
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: runs off the bullpen. Kershaw melted down. The Dodgers, realizing
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: their bullpen such a national embarrassment that they were using,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: starting pitching in relief. That was the move. And so
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: again this is just a kick to the nuts for
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: those of you in the back of the room. The
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Phillies actually again they executed the plan. They got the
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: cold Oltani. He's supposedly the greatest player in baseball who
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: was terrible. They got the shaky bullpen. They had every
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: advantage possible on a tablet. We used to say paper,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: but now they used tablets and the Phillies still lost.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: And this is the end of this run. They're going
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to have to reorganize that rosters. We talked about on
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the radio show last night. This NLDS of twenty twenty five.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It reminded every man, woman and child that you can
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: still win by forcing the other team to make plays
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: under pressure. And it's the simplest thing to do, and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: it's become underrated, which seems ridiculous to say that it's underrated.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Does that not seem dumb to dumb dumb dumb that
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: just making someone make a play is the most underrated
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: weapon in baseball Because everything is run the same way,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and so it's not original. Every team hires some nerd
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: from an IVY League school or an IVY League adjacent
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: school to run their front office. All the owners have
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: been convinced this is the way, and it's not just
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the way, it's the only way to get it done.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: You have to do it this way, and so you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: get all the advantages, you still end up US losing
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So yeah, congratulations to the Phillies.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: The binder was flawless. You executed your game plan, you
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: did everything you wanted to do. And as the great
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: John Sterling would say, that's baseball, Susan, that's baseball. You
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: know you didn't win. Binder Ball works in June and July.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: You go through the numbers and all the different things,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and that'll work. The issue with playoff baseball, as has
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: been discussed and you've heard it, is small sample size
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and stuff that works in April, May, June, July, and August.
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  Speaker 1: It dies on the vine in October. And if you
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: don't believe me, you might want to call up the Phillies.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I'll also tell the Phillies did look good, those uniforms,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: those powder blues, solid good look. Result not so much,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: not so much so. Turning the page, well not too far.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: It's still a sporty story, but it's not really about sports.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: So let's take you back. I know Week six started
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: last night with the upset city as the Giants upset
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the reeling Philadelphia Eagles that are coming apart of the scene,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: but let's take you back to Week five of the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: n season. Just last weekend. It was not the kind
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: of welcome you'd expect when you stroll into a multi
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: billion dollar infl facility. You imagine when you go into
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: a place like that, gleaming quarters, polished marble like the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: taj Mahal, smiling staff, all wearing those matching polos, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: they greet you with welcome to Sofi Stadium, Sir, how
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: can I help you? Well, that's what you would imagine
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you would get. Instead the person you're listening to, that
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: would be me. Ben got a masterclass in how to
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: weaponize a reflective vest. You see. Last weekend, the Chargers
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: were hosting the Washington Commanders. Yes, those Washington Commanders, the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: team formerly known as the Redskins, but now known for
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: owning more rebrands than playoff wins, although I guess they
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: did win a few games last year, but still the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Commanders known as the Washington football team. They were the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Redskins for years that named Commanders. And I saw them,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and I saw the press notes that said Commanders on it,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and they know the Washington traveling media that was there.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Commanders feels like it's the great value brand from Walmart.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It's a generic store brand, it's not a real NFL brand. Well, nevertheless,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I made the track down to Inglewood in the hood
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in Inglewood and up to no good. Apparently I was
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: up to no good. The modern day Colisseum the greatest
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: stadium in the NFL, where billionaires mingle with influencers and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: occasionally the great unwashed, the hoy poloy make their way
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: inside that stadium, and really the rest of us just
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: kind of find the right escalator. It is a beautiful facility.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: So before kickoff, sent the txed over to my old pal,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: my former colleague, Eddie Garcia. Now Eddie is a Steeler fan,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: but through marriage, Eddie is a Charger fan and his
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: wife is a super fan. He's become a podcaster since
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: he got whacked by the company, and one of the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: few people in sports media who can still form a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: coherent sentence without consulting a teleprompter. I'm not gonna send
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: any tom loony. I'm not saying any anyway. So we'd
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: agreed to meet for a quick catch up, nothing elaborate,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: you know. It's a brief destent, I believe, is the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: word between two men who over the years have spent
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: many many many nights in dark, dingy radio studios infested
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: by vermin giant coca roaches, talking about backup catchers and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: third string quarterbacks and all this other blogoney that we
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: talk about. And so our meeting spot was a little
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: in between zone. Now what does that mean? I'll tell
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: you what that So I was media free loading in
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the press box and it was one level down from
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the press box, but one level up from Eddie. So
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: meet in the middle. The man in the middle, Eddie
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: sits in a bougie seat on the lower level. So
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I had to go down out of the press box.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I had to walk down a flight of stairs and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: then walked out a door that is designed for like emergencies,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the fire escape. I walked down that. I then walk
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: over and I have to walk down to an escalator.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I go down the escalator and then I met the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: right turn and I walk about fifteen yards or so,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and then there's Eddie and Eddie has to go one
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: level up and he's right there. It's a neutral site.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: It's like the Geneva you know group there. It's just
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: more nacho cheese, just with more nacho cheese. Now we
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: chatted for me maybe five minutes. This was not a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: long thing. You know, we're both introverts. We talk when
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: we have microphones in front of us. We don't talk
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that much without microphones. I have to talk four hours
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a night. I do three hours on the weekend. So
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I know I'm good. I like Eddie, and we had
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: standard pleasantries and all that. How's the family, how's the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: wife doing, how's the podcast? How's life treating you in
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the glamorous world of niche podcasting? And then came the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: photo op. This is all basic, basic, This is paint
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: by numbers. A couple of old war horses smiling for
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the camera, neither of us realizing that in that very
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: moment we had become fugitives. I didn't realize I was
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a fugitive. I just wanted to meet an old friend
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: and take a photo and catch up and have some
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: small talk. I don't even like small talk normally. It
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: turns out that its Sofi stadium. When you stand in
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the place I was standing, you became a fugitive. I
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: didn't realize it. I hope my family's not disappointed with me,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: because apparently we were standing on sacred ground out of nowhere.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: A Sofi stadium employee appeared a middle aged woman, very
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: negative injury energy, very negative jerurgy. You know that kind
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of grumpy woman where she last smiled when Bill Clinton
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: was president. It's been been a minute, and I was
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: not getting a lot of loving And I'm telling you,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: she was vibrating with the kind of energy that you
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: normally see when you go too the DMV right or HOA.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I used to have an HOA. God. I hated the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: HOA like the people that run the ho I just
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: really just scum of the earth. She looked at us
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the way that I imagine security guards look at teenagers
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: that are loitering outside an Apple store. You can't stand there,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: she barked our our uh, and so that was pretty annoying.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: There's ways to handle these situations, not hey guys. She
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: didn't say, hey guys, sorry, quick heads up. I kind
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: of need you to move. Can you do me a
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: good solid Please take the photo and then move on.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I need that space clear. Not even a polite would
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: you mind moving? I didn't get a polite would you
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: mind moving? No? No, no. This was the malibuz most
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: wanted of stadium enforcement. The tone, the stance, the whole
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: power trip ensemble. She had it all going on, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: as lee Elia would say, they're really really behind you
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: around here, my fucking ass. All right, that's what I
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: was thinking. I was thinking of Lee Ilia, the old
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Cubs manager who died this year. Now, I have been
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: around long enough at this point in my life where
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I recognize when I come across what I call a
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Paul bart Malkop moment. We know, and I think most
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: people know even when you're younger. You recognize a Paul
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Bart Malcott moment. When it's unfolded. You give someone who's
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: spent their life in the shadows being ignored by polite
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: society a tiny bit of authority, just a little bit
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of authority, and suddenly they are patent storming Normandy, General Patton,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the storming Normandy. Now this woman, and I don't know
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: her name, she seemed to believe that that little hunk
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of concrete that we were standing on was the last
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: unspoiled piece of American spoil, and it was her job
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to keep it unspoiled. And it was only her job.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: It was no one else's job, it was her job.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: And so the floor was lava. I didn't realize it.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I'd played that game when I was a kid. The
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: floor is lava or the Flora's sharks, and we were trespassing.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I had to pass. Eddie had a ticket, but we
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: were trespassing. Now, I'm a reasonable human being, contrary to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: what many of you think. And I'm talking about you
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: being the algorithms on social media. You know how I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: feel about the matrix of X and all that stuff
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: which used to be Twitter. So based on that, you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: then the suggestion is, I'm not that way. I promise you,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: if you ask nicely, I'll move. I will I will
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: move if you ask nicely. But if you come at
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: me like a buzzsaw with this self righteous, condescending I
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: will hold the keys. I have the keys to the elevator.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: You don't. That's my tone. Now that's a different animal,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: that's a different story. And so for me, when you
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: do that to me, you've started the battle and it's
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: f around and find out. So, yes, I made a
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: few snarky remarks. I may have mentioned that this seemed
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: like a very curious way to treat two people who
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: theoretically help promote the stadium and the product on a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: big platform, and I may have wandered aloud, you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: just you know, in the public space there, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: wandered aloud whether this was the hill that this woman
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to die on the I am defending the honor
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of the no photo zone between the pretzel stand and
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the service elevator. And she didn't seem too amused. As
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I said, she was a very angry woman. I feel
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: bad for her. She's apparently had a tough life. People
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: have been rude her, and I get it. Rules are
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: rules again, Someone somewhere probably wrote a memo, some corporate
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: weasel about this exact patch of the hallway, and likely
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: if you go through the bowels of Sofi Stadium, there's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I'm guaranteeing there's somewhere there's a laminated chart in some
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: break room with an overpriced vending machine that says no
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: standing between section one thirty two B and one thirty
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: two C. Photo ops require supervisor approval. That is bureaucracy
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: with a capital B. It is. It is the Actually,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: it's a great American art form, and it's everywhere. I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: work in a major corporation that has to deal with that,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and it's it's a tough thing and here's the point
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to make on this. We were not
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: at the Pentagon. You might think that we were at
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon. They have facial recognition similar to the Pentagon.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I would argue that going to an NFL game is
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: more secure than the Pentagon. I really believe that in
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: my heart that you have to sign away all of
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: your rights to go to an NFL game. Because the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: NFL hired all of these old CIA people. That's what
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I was told by somebody, and so they said, we
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: want these stadiums safe. We don't want anyone to get hurt.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: So I have an abundance of caution. We're going to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: have everyone that goes into a stadium, they're gonna be
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: facial recognition. You're gonna have to sign away your firstborn child.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't the Pentagon. It was a stadium. It
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: was a football stadium, a place where people I assume
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: still paint their faces, scream until they lose their voices
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: because of running back fumbled at the one yard line
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: with a chance to win the game. Kyri Williams will Rams.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: That's why I know this was a Charger game. But
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the whole operation exists in theory to make fans feel something. Right,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you go to a game. Otherwise you wouldn't go to
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a game. You just stay home and watch it on
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: TV or listening to on the radio. But you go
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to a game because it's just you feel a vibration.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It's a communal thing when you go to a game, right,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: you're with your other people that are kind of like you.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: They're fans, and you see what happens with your own eyeballs.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Of course, these days when you see fans, they're doing
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the statue of liberty. They're holding their hand up, doing
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the statue of liberty taking photos. So maybe, just maybe
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: maybe you can use some common sense and let a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: couple of old radio pals, you know now a podcaster
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Eddie and I'm still I'm still a radio gup, but
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I'm a podcaster, let them take a picture without treating
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: it like a national security breach. We don't have to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: act like this is TSA and somebody's just gone through
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the security exit at the airport. We now, we took
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the photo anyway. The woman came over as we were
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: taking the foot the photo, and it wasn't exactly a
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: pulitzer shot. I did post one of them. It's you
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: really want to see a photo of two middle aged
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: dudes smiling like they just survived another season of radio nonsense.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: And then I walked back up to the press box
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: muttering you ever do this when you're walking back and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: something happened. We're like, why did that happen? You're kind
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of muttering under your breath, like and in my head,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, this is another example of how
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: America has perfected the art of unnecessary confrontation. Like there
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: are some confrontations that are necessary. This was not necessary.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: This did not need to happen. And this, by the way,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: is the modern fan experience. We have built these billion
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: dollars pleasure domes, but humanity's been replaced by protocol. It
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: is it's all about the protocol. It's no common sense.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: You cannot linger here, you cannot take a picture there, No,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: you can't. You can't bring in a bottle, but sure
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you want to pay seventeen dollars, we'll have you buy
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the same water bottle inside, but it's got our logo
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: on it. And if you have a purse. Just talked
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: about this being national handbag, that you can't bring a
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: handbag in. Why not because you got to have a clearbag.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Why do I need a clearbag because we need to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: look through the bag? Why don't you don't you have
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: metal detectors. We do have metal detectors. Well, why would
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: you need a clear bag if you have a metal
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: detor detector? We just do it. Does that mean you
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: don't trust the metal detector? Don't ask us that question anyway.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: So I got home that night after the radio show,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and I looked at some of the photos we'd taken,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: some other photos there because you know why not. Lighting
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't great, Eddie's smiling, I look like a guy who
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: just got yelled at by the substitute teacher. But it's
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it's perfect because it captures exactly what that day was. Now.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed the game. Washington played very well in the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: second half, but just a couple of friends, me and
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Eddie reconnecting again in a sport the NFL that's increasingly
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: about control, rules and optics, and one moment of pure, absolute,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: unadulterated absurdity, just absolute absurdity that reminded me why I
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: love bloviating about the circus. How absurd all of this
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is right, that we are brought together to watch these
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: grown people play football. They're still young people, but they're
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: playing football. And thousands and thousands of people show up
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to these games and are treated like they're douchebaged public
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: enemy number one by these other people that are They're
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: just a holes. So yeah, I survived so far as
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: no photo zone, and I'm going to add that to
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: my resume on Express Pros. I'm going to add that
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: to my LinkedIn page. I'll add it to the resume.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Once I was reprimanded for standing on the wrong square
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a multi billion dollars football stadium, and I said, well,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I'm to talk about it. I cannot wait to see
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: what happens when I try to smile in the wrong direction.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Next time I go to a game. That will not
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: be this weekend, as both the Chargers and the Dolphin.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Chargers and the Rams rather are on the road, Rams
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: playing the Ravens and the Chargers are in Miami to
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: play the Dolphins. So no game to go to this
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: weekend in the NFL. All right, on that note, we
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: will put the baby to bed. Have a wonderful rest
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of your Friday. Don't forget to watch Benny versus the Penny,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: which is up right now streaming on the YouTube Benny
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Versus Penny YouTube dot com slash at Benny Vspenny. The
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: numbers are good, keep going up. We're getting more and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: more people to watch the show. It's awesome. And at
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: some point I was told by somebody that keeps track
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of this type of stuff, there's this point of demarcation,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: there's this fork in the road where you just skyrocket.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: We're not there yet, and I'm not saying we're gonna
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: get there even this season, but from what I have
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: been told by people that work in the YouTube world,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: there's this point where you get enough followers and then
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: it like the YouTube people's algorithm sees what you're doing there,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: and then they start feeding you some people. Because it's
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: all fake anyway, right, it's mostly fake, like you're real,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: like I want you. I'd rather have lower numbers and
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: have real people that deem the show worthy of watching.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: But you actually don't make a lot of money on that. Anyway,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: We'll look the other way. Here, have a wonderful, wonderful day,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and as Danny g would say, you should be with
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: me this weekend. Later, skater Asta Pasta got to murder
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I Gotta go