Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: GTDM Business Model

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The Fifth Hour: GTDM Business Model · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Cutbooms.
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 the Clearinghouse
0:19
Speaker 2: of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth
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Speaker 2: Hour with Ben Mahller starts right now.
0:28
Speaker 3: In the air everywhere The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
0:34
Speaker 3: Malor and Danny g Radio. A happy Saturday to you
0:38
Speaker 3: as we hang out together here early. I am still
0:42
Speaker 3: in Lost Wages Nevada. Here on this twenty eighth day
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Speaker 3: of March, it is Barnum and Bailey Day, which I
0:51
Speaker 3: don't think are in business anymore, but there's a fun
0:54
Speaker 3: day for them. Celebrate Barnum and Bailey Day back when
0:58
Speaker 3: they had animals and circa is I think they still
1:00
Speaker 3: do in like China and Russia.
1:02
Speaker 1: Just the Wokesters.
1:04
Speaker 3: We can't have animals in the circus here, so when
1:07
Speaker 3: you go into the hippodrome you will not see any animals.
1:10
Speaker 3: It is also National something on a stick day today,
1:15
Speaker 3: which sounds like a good excuse to go out and
1:18
Speaker 3: eat a corn dog. That's what it sounds like to me.
1:21
Speaker 3: And National Hot Tub Day. I'm a fan of the
1:26
Speaker 3: hot tub. Some people in my world not fans of
1:30
Speaker 3: the hot tub. So on this edition of the Fifth
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Speaker 3: Hour podcast, the Saturday specially, we've got the Financial Thriller
1:37
Speaker 3: and the g t DM business model. The Financial Thriller
1:43
Speaker 3: and the gt DM business model. However, we begin with
1:48
Speaker 3: this the Life of Malor podcast on Saturday. So I
1:54
Speaker 3: don't talk too much about this stuff on the radio
1:56
Speaker 3: show because we are meating potatoes sports unless we're not.
2:00
Speaker 1: So Dinner with Rob Parker.
2:03
Speaker 3: Dinner with Rob Parker is what I imagine it would
2:07
Speaker 3: be like if you combined a coupon convention with some
2:11
Speaker 3: kind of tense hostage negotiation.
2:15
Speaker 1: So this was a.
2:16
Speaker 3: Rare special outing, a rare and appropriate special outing for me,
2:23
Speaker 3: which already put me a little bit on edge price
2:26
Speaker 3: of gas driving far away. I'm a homebody. I'm a
2:29
Speaker 3: homebody by nature. As someone that believes that pants with
2:33
Speaker 3: buttons are wrong, that's a very aggressive choice to make
2:39
Speaker 3: in life, pants with buttons. One of the great advantages
2:42
Speaker 3: of doing radio and working overnight is that you're not
2:45
Speaker 3: on camera. Of course, that's not true anymore. There's seven
2:48
Speaker 3: cameras in the studio these days. I digress. However, my
2:51
Speaker 3: wife and I climbed into the Malamobile station wagon wink wink,
2:56
Speaker 3: and left what we call the north Woods and ventured
2:59
Speaker 3: into the city Culver City, a place that sounds like
3:04
Speaker 3: it should have a Culver's with cheese curds and great
3:08
Speaker 3: desserts and all that. It does not, so that makes
3:12
Speaker 3: it false averaging. The people at Culver's should at least
3:15
Speaker 3: put one. I know they're in Arizona and they're not
3:18
Speaker 3: in California, and I understand not wanting to do business
3:20
Speaker 3: in California with the current political climate. However, you know,
3:24
Speaker 3: put one Culver's in Culver City. The people there will
3:28
Speaker 3: have no clue that this is a wonderful, a glorious
3:33
Speaker 3: Midwestern treat and just put it right there, right in
3:36
Speaker 3: the middle of somewhere in Culver City.
3:38
Speaker 1: They have not done that yet.
3:39
Speaker 3: I should be the guy that buys a culver franchise
3:41
Speaker 3: and this just puts that in Culver City.
3:44
Speaker 1: That would be it. So anyway, we met.
3:46
Speaker 3: Rob, my buddy, Rob Parker, my colleague at Fox Sports
3:49
Speaker 3: Radio for dinner at one of those upscale restaurants, the
3:53
Speaker 3: kind of places where the lighting is low, it smells good,
3:58
Speaker 3: the prices are high, and the menu requires interpretation, the
4:04
Speaker 3: kind of a place where the manager wears a suit.
4:09
Speaker 3: And when I see the manager of a restaurant wearing
4:11
Speaker 3: a suit, I immediately assume the position that I cannot afford
4:15
Speaker 3: to breathe too heavily in the restaurant, because I will
4:18
Speaker 3: be charged for every breath that I take. Now I
4:22
Speaker 3: went the opposite direction of discipline. This steak, expensive burger place.
4:30
Speaker 3: There's some things on the menu I didn't even know
4:32
Speaker 3: how to pronounce. I ordered the fetichini alfredo. Now I said,
4:37
Speaker 3: I went away from my discipline. Not that I've not
4:40
Speaker 3: enjoyed feticini alfredo. However, I was encouraged by my wife
4:44
Speaker 3: to add chicken. Right, and so this is a meal
4:49
Speaker 3: to me. And I'll explain why I say that says
4:52
Speaker 3: I've made peace with my life choices. You see, normally,
4:56
Speaker 3: adding chicken to fetichi chini alfredo is like adding packing
5:02
Speaker 3: peanuts to a bowl of cream. It's almost never good.
5:07
Speaker 3: It's chewy, rubbery, It's like little piece of rubber. However,
5:12
Speaker 3: spoiler alert. This was a high end joint. The chicken
5:16
Speaker 3: was actually edible, more than edible. It was really good,
5:20
Speaker 3: like suspiciously good, Like I didn't trust it, Like I've
5:22
Speaker 3: never had fedicini with chicken that was this delicious, Like
5:25
Speaker 3: this is the way it's always supposed to be.
5:27
Speaker 1: Why Why have not I had this before?
5:30
Speaker 3: So my wife ordered what I can only describe was
5:32
Speaker 3: a rabbit food, a salad. Of course, when you go
5:37
Speaker 3: to a restaurant like this, especially in Los Angeles or
5:40
Speaker 3: San Francisco or something like that, the salad looked like
5:43
Speaker 3: it had been assembled by someone who owns a hot
5:46
Speaker 3: yoga studio and has a bright colored hair and judges
5:51
Speaker 3: others silently.
5:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:54
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, my man Rob Parker, now he turned dinner into
5:57
Speaker 3: a financial thriller. A financial thriller. Rob is apparently doing
6:03
Speaker 3: low carb, which I did not know, did not know.
6:08
Speaker 3: So he's doing low carb, which in restaurant terminology, I'm
6:12
Speaker 3: not one hundred percent sure. I've never worked at an
6:14
Speaker 3: actual restaurant. I am an amateur line cook at the
6:19
Speaker 3: Malar Mansion. But for those who work at restaurants, I
6:22
Speaker 3: believe when someone comes in who's low carb, that means
6:25
Speaker 3: ordering food okay, and then rejecting roughly eighty percent of
6:30
Speaker 3: the dish. So ribs except no sauce, no sides, no potato, no, none.
6:39
Speaker 1: Of that stuff. Just a salad.
6:41
Speaker 3: Now, the kitchen, apparently unfamiliar with this level of culinary minimalism,
6:46
Speaker 3: brought out ribs covered in sauce. Now, when I say
6:50
Speaker 3: covered in sauce, it's like these ribs had been baptized, okay,
6:54
Speaker 3: and they looked really good, Like the sauce looked delicious,
6:57
Speaker 3: and it was glistening and all that. And Rob said, no,
7:00
Speaker 3: I did not order this, and he did not. He
7:01
Speaker 3: did not order the ribs with the sauce. So Rob
7:04
Speaker 3: sent them back. And now here's where the timing becomes critical.
7:10
Speaker 3: So my wife and I had already been served our food,
7:13
Speaker 3: and I attempted to be polite.
7:15
Speaker 1: I was a cup.
7:16
Speaker 3: Scout and a boy scout, and I know when I
7:17
Speaker 3: went to camp that you have to you have to
7:20
Speaker 3: kind of hey, wait for everyone to get their food
7:23
Speaker 3: before you set in. Rob was like, just eat, just eat,
7:25
Speaker 3: just to eat, just eat, just eat, just eat. So
7:28
Speaker 3: I started eating because I had fedushini and chicken.
7:30
Speaker 1: It was kind of a warm dish. My wife.
7:32
Speaker 3: She was encouraged to eat, so that meant we were
7:35
Speaker 3: eating while Rob sat there twiddling his thumbs, staring at us,
7:40
Speaker 3: waiting for his corrected dish of ribs, like a man
7:44
Speaker 3: reconsidering every decision that led him up to this moment. Now,
7:49
Speaker 3: it took a little while because this is a high
7:51
Speaker 3: end place. They make everything from scratch. This is not
7:54
Speaker 3: the kind of place that's on the wacky Tobacci, and
7:56
Speaker 3: they just kind of bring everything out right away. No,
7:59
Speaker 3: so eventually it seemed like it took ninety minutes. It
8:03
Speaker 3: likely did not. Eventually, the manager again in a full
8:07
Speaker 3: suit because fancy, and that's it. It came over and
8:13
Speaker 3: apologized to Rob really like you'd think that he had
8:18
Speaker 3: kicked Rob's dog and burned his house down. And so
8:23
Speaker 3: he came up apologized and not just a polite apology,
8:26
Speaker 3: and this was, hey, we messed up. We don't mess
8:30
Speaker 3: up here. We messed up, and now we're gonna make
8:33
Speaker 3: it right. It was that kind of an apology. I said, Wow,
8:37
Speaker 3: this is like, man, this is not your normal apology.
8:41
Speaker 3: How many videos have we seen on social media of
8:43
Speaker 3: people going into fast food and getting into dust ups
8:46
Speaker 3: with the people the fast food rest rant. No, this
8:48
Speaker 3: was we messed up. Now we're going to make it right.
8:51
Speaker 3: So they took the ribs off the bill, completely off
8:53
Speaker 3: the bill. So Rob Parker in the year twenty twenty six,
8:56
Speaker 3: went to a high end restaurant in Culver City, a
9:01
Speaker 3: studio town, and had dinner for eleven dollars. Eleven that's
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Speaker 3: not a dinner, that's a parking for You can't get
9:08
Speaker 3: a value meal at a fast food restaurant for that
9:12
Speaker 3: kind of money. So he paid for a salad and
9:16
Speaker 3: got the experience of ribs granted, no sauce, no sauce,
9:22
Speaker 3: And there was the emotional tension and a front row
9:26
Speaker 3: seat to us eating as many cars or at least
9:30
Speaker 3: me eating as many carbs as possible. We also had
9:32
Speaker 3: appetizers which had carbs in them, and even dessert. We
9:36
Speaker 3: went big. We went big and eat and all that
9:39
Speaker 3: like it was some kind of competitive sport. We were
9:42
Speaker 3: trying to audition to take on Joey Chestnut in some
9:46
Speaker 3: eating contest.
9:48
Speaker 1: Now.
9:48
Speaker 3: I meanwhile, when the bill came, I paid full price,
9:51
Speaker 3: like a civilian, full price.
9:54
Speaker 1: And that was quite the price. That was.
9:59
Speaker 3: I need to get a tea show to pay for
10:00
Speaker 3: the meal. The restaurant sat I mentioned. It's a studio town.
10:04
Speaker 3: It's sat right near the historic Culver Hotel. Again, no,
10:08
Speaker 3: Culver's in Culver City. The Culver Hotel, if you're into
10:13
Speaker 3: old Hollywood lore, is famous for housing the Munchkins during
10:18
Speaker 3: the production of the iconic.
10:20
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz.
10:22
Speaker 3: And yes, the stories about that place are colorful, Like
10:30
Speaker 3: my god, let's just say, if those walls could talk,
10:33
Speaker 3: they'd probably request legal representation. There may or may not
10:37
Speaker 3: have been some adult film productions that took place involving
10:40
Speaker 3: the Munchkins.
10:42
Speaker 1: That's just the legend.
10:43
Speaker 3: Now, I filmed a documentary in the Culver Hotel during
10:49
Speaker 3: the pandemic, so that was the last time I was
10:51
Speaker 3: over in that area. And right across the street you've
10:55
Speaker 3: got the Amazon Studios and nearby is the Sony Picture Studios.
11:00
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's a reminder. Culver City runs on the
11:03
Speaker 3: entertainment business. It also runs on nostalgia. That Culver Hotel,
11:07
Speaker 3: by the way, it's like a triangle hotel. The Three
11:10
Speaker 3: Stooges were running around the hotel, a bunch of Charlie Chaplin,
11:14
Speaker 3: bunch of early Hollywood people. It's legendary but it's an
11:18
Speaker 3: entertainment town, and it's like there's always people that are
11:21
Speaker 3: either trying to become famous or people pitching ideas so
11:25
Speaker 3: somebody else could become famous, which is it's very odd
11:28
Speaker 3: this still goes on because people become fake famous in
11:31
Speaker 3: the matrix.
11:32
Speaker 1: So you don't have to go to Hollywood to be famous.
11:34
Speaker 3: You could be fake famous on the matrix where the
11:37
Speaker 3: bots all of you and all that stuff.
11:39
Speaker 1: So back in my single days, I used to roam
11:43
Speaker 1: this area quite a bit.
11:44
Speaker 3: I live not that far away, and I would make
11:49
Speaker 3: very poor dietary decisions on a regular basis. Every week
11:53
Speaker 3: I would go to Tito's Tacos and Johnny Pastami. I'm
11:57
Speaker 3: not talking once a month, I'm talking weekly. One day
12:02
Speaker 3: would be Tito's, one day would be Johnny's. Sometimes I'd
12:05
Speaker 3: go eat Johnny's and then pick up some Tito's on
12:08
Speaker 3: the way home. These are places where the food was amazing.
12:14
Speaker 3: It was cheap, it was delicious. It was like truck
12:18
Speaker 3: stop food. You know, you go to truck stop. I'm
12:20
Speaker 3: only even know a couple. I'm sure you guys that
12:22
Speaker 3: are truckers. So this was not true. Blobbermouth Benny My
12:26
Speaker 3: experience is they give you large portions of food at
12:29
Speaker 3: a reasonable price, and you can pay for a shower.
12:32
Speaker 1: That's my experience.
12:33
Speaker 3: At truck stops, moving man Matt and Louie moving Man,
12:37
Speaker 3: Matt and Louie have have let me know a little
12:40
Speaker 3: bit about that, and lot lizards. Matt let me know
12:43
Speaker 3: about the lot lizards. So anyway, I used to hang
12:47
Speaker 3: out these places all the time. And nobody's wearing a
12:50
Speaker 3: suit unless something's gone terribly wrong.
12:53
Speaker 1: So all in all, you know, it was a great
12:57
Speaker 1: night with Rob.
12:58
Speaker 3: We talked a little shop, not too much, mostly about
13:01
Speaker 3: life and the meaning of life, which is code for
13:05
Speaker 3: we avoided anything that might be dicey at work at
13:10
Speaker 3: the headline remains though headline. Rob Parker, longtime gas bag,
13:16
Speaker 3: baseball writer, Hall of Fame voter, beat the system. He
13:19
Speaker 3: walked into a fancy La Area restaurant and left with
13:24
Speaker 3: an eleven dollar bill. On eleven dollar bill, I walked in,
13:29
Speaker 3: I left wondering if I should refinance something, take out
13:32
Speaker 3: some kind of loan.
13:33
Speaker 1: And this is a reminder why I don't go out
13:37
Speaker 1: very often. And there are no winners.
13:40
Speaker 3: The only people who are out there who accidentally pay retail.
13:45
Speaker 3: I guess I was the guy paying retail now turning
13:48
Speaker 3: the page, but not very far so on this particular night,
13:53
Speaker 3: the Night with Rob, which is being immortalized for your
13:57
Speaker 3: ears only, for your earszone only, not for the faint
14:01
Speaker 3: of heart here on this podcast. So we had what
14:05
Speaker 3: I believe was a simple plan, and I've laid out
14:08
Speaker 3: everything that pretty much happened. Eat dinner, schmooze, which I'm
14:12
Speaker 3: not good at. I'm an introvert, not politely go home,
14:16
Speaker 3: and then at a private point, possibly in the car,
14:20
Speaker 3: just complain later in a controlled environment about the bill
14:24
Speaker 3: like a normal person. Instead, I found myself spiraling into
14:28
Speaker 3: an economic dissertation while standing in a parking lot down
14:33
Speaker 3: the block from the restaurant in Culver City, somewhere in
14:38
Speaker 3: the exhaust plume of the evil dreaded four h five freeway, which,
14:44
Speaker 3: if we're being totally transparent here and honest, has the
14:48
Speaker 3: emotional warmth of a very disappointed relative like an aunt
14:53
Speaker 3: or uncle or grandma, or we call it babushkas. So
14:57
Speaker 3: this all began after the dinner with Up. As Paul
15:01
Speaker 3: Harvey said back in his day, you know what the
15:04
Speaker 3: news is in a minute, you're going to hear the
15:08
Speaker 3: rest of the story.
15:12
Speaker 1: What a legend and nobody knows who he is anymore?
15:17
Speaker 3: And what else do you say? For what it's worth?
15:19
Speaker 3: You see, I used to have these places that I
15:22
Speaker 3: talked about them. We all got places emotional support restaurants,
15:25
Speaker 3: and mine, again were Tito's and Johnny's. And these were
15:30
Speaker 3: not just eateies. They were institutions, pillars of grease and
15:34
Speaker 3: comfort food where calies did not exist. Except I became
15:39
Speaker 3: morbidly obese eating at those restaurants, so I started going
15:43
Speaker 3: there because of a radio bit. Believe it or not,
15:45
Speaker 3: I was doing Middays Mallor in the middays did a
15:48
Speaker 3: midday show with the Prince of Darkness League Line, and
15:52
Speaker 3: one of the bits we did on a lazy summer day,
15:55
Speaker 3: it was.
15:55
Speaker 1: Like, where's the greatest I don't do this anymore. I
15:58
Speaker 1: mock this. I now goof on this, Like what what
16:00
Speaker 1: is the top? I was?
16:01
Speaker 3: I was single and I was like looking for places
16:03
Speaker 3: to eat lunch. I was like, I love crunchy tacos.
16:05
Speaker 3: Where's a great taco place in La And then I
16:07
Speaker 3: was like, I love pastrami, where's the greatest Pistamia, and
16:10
Speaker 3: so people started calling said, listen, the greatest Pistromi is
16:13
Speaker 3: this place. Johnny's the greatest tacos crunchy tacos is tinos.
16:16
Speaker 3: I said, okay, And they weren't wrong. So I started
16:19
Speaker 3: going there and To's Tito Tacos, which is right on
16:25
Speaker 3: the east side. It's allowed, it's on the east side
16:27
Speaker 3: of the four h five. The tacos were when I
16:29
Speaker 3: started going there, about two fifty a taco. Uh you know,
16:33
Speaker 3: now two fifty is now a distant like Instagram filter
16:41
Speaker 3: from nineteen twelve memory, all right, but it really wasn't
16:46
Speaker 3: that long ago, and I trust that my arteries still remember.
16:51
Speaker 3: So now that same taco is seven dollars roughly, it's
16:57
Speaker 3: like seven dollars for a taco with She's that doesn't
17:01
Speaker 3: even pretend to be any kind of artists in situation.
17:04
Speaker 3: This is a gringo taco. As my late friend Alex,
17:08
Speaker 3: a proud Mexican American. He was like he had Mexican Russian.
17:14
Speaker 3: He had a lot going on. I loved Alex, great guy.
17:17
Speaker 3: He died a number of years ago, but he used
17:19
Speaker 3: to rip me for eating the gringo.
17:20
Speaker 1: You know.
17:21
Speaker 3: He called me the Gringo taco king, and so these
17:26
Speaker 3: tacos were just addictive, and it was like it was
17:31
Speaker 3: great at seven dollars. No, and it's a crunchy reminder
17:36
Speaker 3: that time is undefeated. It's one of the reasons that
17:38
Speaker 3: I have mastered the crunchy taco at the Malamansion because
17:42
Speaker 3: of these seven dollars price tag of titos. And now
17:44
Speaker 3: Johnny's that was our late night spot. We used to
17:47
Speaker 3: run into baseball players. I was doing Dodger talk and
17:49
Speaker 3: some of the guys would go over there pick up
17:51
Speaker 3: astrami on the way home because they all lived near
17:53
Speaker 3: the beach, and that was on the way to the beach,
17:55
Speaker 3: and the pastrami sandwich. When we started going there was
17:57
Speaker 3: about twelve bucks. Now twelve bucks is you know it's amount?
18:00
Speaker 3: This was many years ago. It is now twenty six dollars.
18:05
Speaker 3: Last I checked, twenty six dollars for that price. I
18:08
Speaker 3: expect the sandwich to come with a financial advisor, free
18:14
Speaker 3: freestock and a small lecture on long term investment strategy.
18:19
Speaker 3: Now the cheeseburger, which again was reasonably priced, is now
18:25
Speaker 3: twenty three dollars, and I look at that, I'm like
18:29
Speaker 3: twenty three dollars.
18:30
Speaker 1: I should get, like at least a robe.
18:33
Speaker 3: Or a towel, or a consultation from a therapist or something. No,
18:39
Speaker 3: nothing comes with it.
18:40
Speaker 1: By the way.
18:41
Speaker 3: You don't get a side of fries. You don't get
18:42
Speaker 3: a drink. It's not a combo meal. You don't even
18:46
Speaker 3: get a sympathetic glance.
18:48
Speaker 1: Nothing.
18:48
Speaker 3: You stand there holding your sandwich like it's some kind
18:51
Speaker 3: of bougie handbag, wondering what exactly, what exactly led you
18:58
Speaker 3: to have lunch at this price point. And it's not
19:02
Speaker 3: like it's it's an out Johnny Spistami is an outdoor
19:05
Speaker 3: restaurant with fire pits.
19:07
Speaker 1: Okay, it's not. It's not high end. Now. I understand inflation.
19:11
Speaker 1: I do. I'm not unreasonable. I read the headlines.
19:15
Speaker 3: I don't talk about the news, but I read the news,
19:18
Speaker 3: and occasionally I pretend to understand the headlines.
19:22
Speaker 1: This just all feels different.
19:23
Speaker 3: This feels like the food is looking at me and saying,
19:28
Speaker 3: let's see how far we can push this guy before
19:32
Speaker 3: he breaks this dope, this dingleberry, this schmndrick, and I
19:37
Speaker 3: am often breaking.
19:38
Speaker 1: I am, I am.
19:40
Speaker 3: It's not just tacos and PASTRAMI it's everywhere. The Dodgers,
19:45
Speaker 3: who were the gold standard for family affordability back here,
19:51
Speaker 3: you know, when I was a kid growing up, come
19:52
Speaker 3: to DONGERSDA and Hum a family of.
19:55
Speaker 1: Four for thirty dollars.
19:57
Speaker 3: Well, the Dodgers now have apparently decided, since they're winning
20:00
Speaker 3: all the time, that attending a baseball game should feel
20:03
Speaker 3: like applying for a mortgage. Do you see this, I
20:06
Speaker 3: know this baseball season, which is a couple days into
20:08
Speaker 3: the baseball season, but a family of four, four innocent men,
20:13
Speaker 3: women and children who just want to watch a game,
20:18
Speaker 3: you are looking at over four hundred dollars for Dodger
20:23
Speaker 3: baseball four one hundred.
20:26
Speaker 1: And thirteen dollars. I saw this on the Internet the
20:28
Speaker 1: other day. It must be true.
20:29
Speaker 3: It's on the world Wide Web, and from what I read,
20:32
Speaker 3: that is the cheapest ticket and not the most expensive.
20:36
Speaker 1: The cheapest tickets the word used.
20:41
Speaker 3: The word used to be something else cheap or cheapest.
20:45
Speaker 3: Right now it means brace yourself. The hutzpa. The hutzpa
20:50
Speaker 3: of this is a while because to include parking, which
20:53
Speaker 3: is forty.
20:55
Speaker 1: Five dollars, I think.
20:56
Speaker 3: Forty five dollars hot dogs, one beer per adult, one
21:00
Speaker 3: soda per child.
21:01
Speaker 1: That sounds pretty modest.
21:04
Speaker 3: I know as a kid, I was not going to
21:06
Speaker 3: just have a soda and a hot dog. No, I
21:08
Speaker 3: was going popcorn, I was going pretzel, I was going
21:11
Speaker 3: big peanuts.
21:13
Speaker 1: And so it just seems like that's not enough food.
21:16
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, the total comes out like it's a receipt
21:20
Speaker 3: from a casino trip or something like that. You half
21:22
Speaker 3: expect someone to walk over and say, sir, would you
21:25
Speaker 3: like a would you like to refinance the seventh inning stretch?
21:28
Speaker 3: And yet people still leave these games. Oh why would
21:31
Speaker 3: you leave early? You're paying the premium.
21:33
Speaker 1: And here's the.
21:33
Speaker 3: Thing I understand. The Dodgers are good. They're very good.
21:36
Speaker 3: This is the golden era. They're gonna win the World
21:39
Speaker 3: Series again this year. The Dodgers win all the time
21:41
Speaker 3: they've went back to back. They should have had two
21:43
Speaker 3: more World Series if it wasn't for the cheating assholes.
21:46
Speaker 3: I can say it on the podcast. And also the
21:51
Speaker 3: reality of the Clinton Kershaw experience. Yeah he killed them anyway.
21:57
Speaker 3: So they're good, and that somehow makes it worse. It's
22:00
Speaker 3: like being overcharged by someone who doesn't even need the money.
22:04
Speaker 3: It's the economic equivalent of a guy in a BMW
22:09
Speaker 3: asking you to venmo him for gas. You're you're okay.
22:14
Speaker 3: You're driving a beamer. I think you're okay. The Dodgers
22:17
Speaker 3: have the Otani gold Rush. This is like the tech
22:22
Speaker 3: boom in Northern California. It's all that Japanese money. It
22:26
Speaker 3: is good for them. It's not bad. It's it's eureka,
22:29
Speaker 3: it's bonanza. It's bonanza. You struck oil and yet you're
22:34
Speaker 3: still sticking it.
22:35
Speaker 1: To your fans.
22:36
Speaker 3: And there's a theme here as we try to put
22:38
Speaker 3: the bow on this, and I don't like themes. I
22:42
Speaker 3: am not a fan of themes because they make me
22:44
Speaker 3: feel like I'm learning something.
22:45
Speaker 1: I don't want to learn something from the theme.
22:48
Speaker 3: The theme is what I call the GTDM business model.
22:54
Speaker 1: What is the GTM business model?
22:56
Speaker 3: Band, I'll tell you what it is. So the gt
22:59
Speaker 3: D business model, or go get that dumb money. It's
23:04
Speaker 3: the get that dumb money business model. It's subtle, it whispers,
23:08
Speaker 3: surely someone will pay this, and then horrifyingly, someone does,
23:14
Speaker 3: which brings me to the final chapter of this podcast,
23:21
Speaker 3: and it involves a place you may or may not
23:23
Speaker 3: have heard of called arowon Er whn Arowan.
23:31
Speaker 1: Now what is that?
23:32
Speaker 3: Well, it is a in quotes, grocery store, Aralon. So
23:40
Speaker 3: when we were at dinner with Rob. On the way
23:42
Speaker 3: back to the car, we saw this store and I'd
23:46
Speaker 3: heard about it on the interweb.
23:48
Speaker 1: So we wandered in.
23:49
Speaker 3: And when I say wandered, it felt more like entering
23:54
Speaker 3: a museum where everything is up for sale and also
23:59
Speaker 3: kind of giving of the business and you're like, well,
24:02
Speaker 3: you can't really afford any of this.
24:04
Speaker 1: Why are you here, you loser?
24:06
Speaker 3: Shame on you. And Arawon is not a grocery store.
24:13
Speaker 3: It is a lifestyle experiment, is what it is. It
24:17
Speaker 3: is a place where a strawberry costs nineteen dollars. And
24:23
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about a box of two dozen strawberries.
24:27
Speaker 1: I am talking about a single strawberry. One.
24:33
Speaker 3: I have eaten roughly ninety nine percent of my meals
24:38
Speaker 3: for less than this strawberry. I have had meaningful relationships
24:42
Speaker 3: that have cost less than that. I guess it's a
24:45
Speaker 3: Japanese strawberry. The strawberry sits there in the it's in
24:50
Speaker 3: the cooler, and it's it's smug. It knows what it is, right,
24:55
Speaker 3: it knows you're not buying it for nourishment.
24:58
Speaker 1: It's one rawberry. You're buying it for validation.
25:03
Speaker 3: You're buying it so you can brag about it on
25:06
Speaker 3: social media and do the old flex.
25:10
Speaker 1: Hey, I paid nineteen dollars for this.
25:14
Speaker 3: As if you're confessing something noble, it must be special.
25:18
Speaker 3: It must be special. That's always the argument. It must
25:21
Speaker 3: be special. And I'm thinking now it's not special. As
25:25
Speaker 3: if I ate that I should never get sick again,
25:29
Speaker 3: that should give me a force field on everything.
25:31
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what.
25:32
Speaker 3: I'll pay nineteen dollars for a Japanese strawberry if you
25:35
Speaker 3: can promise me that I will have no illnesses, no sickness,
25:38
Speaker 3: and everything will be healthy for the next five years.
25:41
Speaker 1: I'll do it. In fact, I'll buy three of them. Okay. Meanwhile,
25:45
Speaker 1: back to the story of Erewan.
25:48
Speaker 3: So I'm in the corner, essentially arguing, looking at a
25:51
Speaker 3: bottle of juice that costs twelve dollars. Now, when I
25:55
Speaker 3: say a bottle of juice, I'm talking about little twelve
25:57
Speaker 3: ounce bottle of juice.
25:58
Speaker 1: The juice has a label that looks like.
26:00
Speaker 3: Went to some kind of art school, maybe art center
26:02
Speaker 3: in Pasadena. The jewice believes in itself. The Jews has dreams.
26:07
Speaker 3: It does now. My wife, of course, I'm just like
26:10
Speaker 3: rolling my eyes right like he oh my god, I
26:12
Speaker 3: can't beiu se how much that is. My wife, of
26:14
Speaker 3: course loved it. She's, oh, this looks healthy. Oh that
26:18
Speaker 3: looks really delicious, she was saying. As we were walking
26:22
Speaker 3: through the store, she picked up something that appeared to
26:24
Speaker 3: be yogurt but had the price of a small microwave.
26:33
Speaker 3: And I naturally did what any reasonable middle aged person
26:36
Speaker 3: would do. I rolled my eyes again so hard. I
26:39
Speaker 3: briefly saw my childhood. So it turns out that my
26:43
Speaker 3: many sermons about not being a sucker and getting gouged
26:49
Speaker 3: did not work. Did not work, And I had one
26:52
Speaker 3: of those great epiphanies. And it's the uncomfortable truth. And
26:57
Speaker 3: I admit I am not I'm not above this. I'm
27:01
Speaker 3: not above this. I mock it, I ridicule it. I
27:03
Speaker 3: stand there like a self appointed economic expert. When it
27:07
Speaker 3: comes to snacks. I'm fascinated by it, though I'm drawn in.
27:13
Speaker 3: I want to understand the mindset on who's buying the
27:17
Speaker 3: nineteen dollars strawberry, the twenty dollars smoothie, who's spending four
27:20
Speaker 3: hundred dollars to go to a single baseball game on
27:22
Speaker 3: a Wednesday night against the Rockies. And then I realize
27:27
Speaker 3: there is a glitch in the human DNA. There is
27:32
Speaker 3: the weakness businesses have discovered. It's people who want to
27:38
Speaker 3: feel like they've accessed something that's elevated, They've gone to
27:45
Speaker 3: a higher level in the video game of life, something
27:48
Speaker 3: that's exclusive. Something the rich people like, something that says
27:53
Speaker 3: you are not just eating, your experiencing. And I'm always
27:58
Speaker 3: in my head thinking, well, I remember hearing about Warren
28:00
Speaker 3: Buffett who would just eat at McDonald's every day on
28:03
Speaker 3: his way to way to the office, and so he's like,
28:07
Speaker 3: was the richest guy in the world for a while,
28:08
Speaker 3: Why not just eat like Warren Buffett?
28:10
Speaker 1: Just eat normal?
28:11
Speaker 3: No, no, no, it's what I call status signaling.
28:16
Speaker 1: And that's the clinical term.
28:17
Speaker 3: It's the con it's the I paid a lot, so
28:21
Speaker 3: it must be special. Glitch in the human DNA. The
28:25
Speaker 3: prices are not just numbers. They're like a statement. They
28:29
Speaker 3: are saying, if you have to ask, you peasant cannot
28:34
Speaker 3: afford this. And I, of course am always asking, I'm.
28:38
Speaker 1: Always how much is that? Why? Is that so expensive?
28:44
Speaker 3: So I leave, I leave the crunchy tacos behind it.
28:48
Speaker 3: There was a point in my life I could not
28:49
Speaker 3: visit Culver City. I cannot drive through Culver City without
28:52
Speaker 3: eating a Tito's taco, the crunchy taco with the cheese,
28:55
Speaker 3: the neon orange cheese.
28:57
Speaker 1: On top, and uh.
28:59
Speaker 3: And I left. I left with no pastrami. I didn't
29:02
Speaker 3: have the pastrami. I left with no strawberry. I didn't
29:06
Speaker 3: have the strawberry. I especially left the strawberry behind. So
29:10
Speaker 3: I get back to the Malamobile, which at this point
29:14
Speaker 3: feels like the very affordable, last affordable thing I guess
29:17
Speaker 3: I own, and we make the long drive home to
29:21
Speaker 3: the north Woods, unfortunately down the loving embrace of the
29:25
Speaker 3: four oh.
29:25
Speaker 1: Five, which I it.
29:27
Speaker 3: Charges nothing and still manages to make everything or take
29:31
Speaker 3: everything from you as you're going through. And it's a
29:35
Speaker 3: it's pretty crazy because that's always been the point of demarcation.
29:38
Speaker 3: You've got the elitist west of the four oh five,
29:42
Speaker 3: and then east of the four or five is more
29:44
Speaker 3: of the working class. However, on this one, it just
29:48
Speaker 3: seems like it's everywhere. It's everywhere. You know, I'm driving
29:51
Speaker 3: home I'm thinking to myself, I've got that internal monologue,
29:55
Speaker 3: and it's just, you know, maybe the real luxury, maybe
30:01
Speaker 3: I've got this whole internal monolog. Maybe the real luxury
30:05
Speaker 3: is not paying twenty six dollars for a sandwich. Maybe
30:07
Speaker 3: the real luxury is remembering when it was twelve dollars
30:10
Speaker 3: a sandwich and being just a little bit annoyed about
30:14
Speaker 3: it for apparently forever. All right, on that note, we
30:18
Speaker 3: will get out of here and have a great day.
30:20
Speaker 3: Enjoy the baseball, Enjoy the baseball today and the basketball
30:27
Speaker 3: all that. We got a big, big sporting day here,
30:31
Speaker 3: and we'll have the mail bag on Sunday. Hopefully Danny
30:35
Speaker 3: g will join us for that, who knows. If not,
30:38
Speaker 3: it'll just be me. But we'll talk to you next time.
30:41
Speaker 3: And Aloha, bye bye, bye bye, as Dick and Dayton
30:46
Speaker 3: would say.
30:48
Speaker 1: My flation