Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: The Benny's Wrap & Blaze Waze

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The Fifth Hour: The Benny's Wrap & Blaze Waze · 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 Clearinghouse of
0:19
Speaker 2: hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
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Speaker 2: with Ben Mahller 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 very happy Friday to you.
0:40
Speaker 1: March twentieth. Here early did the Overnight Show came back
0:45
Speaker 1: in and this is a podcast that is a podcast,
0:49
Speaker 1: not a radio show that becomes a podcast. As you know.
0:53
Speaker 1: This is just a podcast for the super duper p ones,
0:58
Speaker 1: the legends who listened to the Fifth Hour podcast. We
1:01
Speaker 1: celebrate a crazy holiday for mister Rogers. Won't You Be
1:07
Speaker 1: my Neighbor Day is today? Yeah, it's one of those
1:12
Speaker 1: made up holidays. Won't you be my Neighbor Day? Celebrating
1:15
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers who helped raise me all those days I
1:19
Speaker 1: ditch school back in the day. If you were raised
1:22
Speaker 1: in the seventies or the eighties, that's a big, big thing.
1:27
Speaker 1: Mister Rogers Neighborhood children's show on PBS back in the
1:31
Speaker 1: Stone Age when there wasn't a lot on TV. It
1:34
Speaker 1: aired for the first time in nineteen sixty eight, the
1:37
Speaker 1: first episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood out of Pittsburgh, and
1:42
Speaker 1: by nineteen eighty four the show had already been on
1:46
Speaker 1: for over a decade, almost two decades, and mister Rogers
1:49
Speaker 1: donated that iconic red sweater to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington.
1:58
Speaker 1: The last episode of Mister Roger's Neighborhood aired twenty five
2:01
Speaker 1: years ago, and I know some of them still get
2:05
Speaker 1: broadcast around. Mister Rogers has been gone. He died of
2:10
Speaker 1: stomach cancer in twenty oh three, so it's been twenty
2:15
Speaker 1: twenty three years. In fact, over twenty three years. He
2:18
Speaker 1: died in February of three. But it's won't you be
2:23
Speaker 1: My Neighbor Day? So and celebrate that. Also National Ravioli
2:28
Speaker 1: Day today. Yeah, how about that? Love my Ravioli. I
2:32
Speaker 1: love fried Ravioli. That's more of a Saint Louis thing,
2:35
Speaker 1: but Ravioli goes all the way back to the fourteenth
2:39
Speaker 1: century and you can have ravioli ready to go, ready
2:45
Speaker 1: made ravioli will be prepared about ten minutes. And it's
2:50
Speaker 1: it's great. You can put all kinds of different stuff
2:52
Speaker 1: in there, make it however you want it. You can
2:54
Speaker 1: do triple cheese ravioli. You can do meat ravioli, you
2:58
Speaker 1: can do the mushroom, the scott butternut squash, whatever you want.
3:03
Speaker 1: On this podcast, though, we have the good, the bad,
3:07
Speaker 1: and the ugly from the Bennies of twenty twenty six.
3:11
Speaker 1: As we put that baby to bed, also like a
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Speaker 1: beached blue whale. And with that we begin. So there
3:21
Speaker 1: are award shows and then there are rituals. I'm not
3:26
Speaker 1: a big award show guy. You might think, well, you
3:29
Speaker 1: host the Bennies every year, this must be a big thing.
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Speaker 1: I enjoy the Bennies very much. The difference though, between
3:35
Speaker 1: the award shows and back in the day I would
3:36
Speaker 1: watch my mom would love watching the award shows and
3:39
Speaker 1: seeing what all the famous people were worrying. The difference though,
3:43
Speaker 1: between award shows is not the trophies handed out, the
3:47
Speaker 1: people though that gather around. To me, that's the difference.
3:50
Speaker 1: Who wants to hang out with those Hollywood a holes?
3:53
Speaker 1: They have all the answers to all the problems of
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Speaker 1: the world, whether they live in their mansions far far
3:59
Speaker 1: away from reality. So the Academy Awards, you know, they've
4:04
Speaker 1: got that whole red carpet thing, and they've got the paparazzo,
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Speaker 1: they've got the orchestra that is there to entertain the masses.
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Speaker 1: The Benny Awards, that's my wheelhouse. The Benny Awards, the
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Speaker 1: annual pageant, which is a Fox Sports Radio production overnight
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Speaker 1: in our little universe, has something more durable than all
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Speaker 1: that the Academy Awards has, in my opinion, Voices in
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Speaker 1: the dark, people who call not because they are globally famous,
4:36
Speaker 1: recognized heroes of pop culture. No, no, no, because they
4:40
Speaker 1: are legends with people that have sleep issues and things
4:45
Speaker 1: that go bumpitty bump in the night. This edition of
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Speaker 1: the Fifth Hour podcast the exclusive post game coverage. Nobody
4:55
Speaker 1: else has this. You're not gonna hear this coverage on
4:57
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan or any other podcast. Only here do we
5:02
Speaker 1: have the global exclusive postgame show. So a look back,
5:07
Speaker 1: some never before told factoids on what happened behind the scenes.
5:12
Speaker 1: So buckle up, buckaroo, and let me start here. Just
5:17
Speaker 1: for the record, some of you think that my position
5:20
Speaker 1: is a anti position on this show. No, I love
5:25
Speaker 1: this stupid dingle Berry of a show that we do
5:30
Speaker 1: here the Benny Awards, I do. I love it. You
5:33
Speaker 1: know what I love about it? I love it the
5:35
Speaker 1: same way every neighborhood's got that restaurant, that diner that
5:40
Speaker 1: hasn't changed for thirty years. The food tastes the same
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Speaker 1: as it did when you walked in there in nineteen
5:47
Speaker 1: ninety six. The regulars sit in the same exact booth
5:51
Speaker 1: that they are, chairs whatever around around the restaurant, and everyone,
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Speaker 1: everyone turns and gives gives them a death there. Any
6:01
Speaker 1: new guy that walks in gets the desk there, just
6:05
Speaker 1: like they wandered into a secret society. What are you doing?
6:09
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to be here now. I had that
6:10
Speaker 1: happen not around where I live, obviously. I was in
6:14
Speaker 1: the visiting my father in law in North Carolina and
6:18
Speaker 1: we stopped at a waffle house, not even a neighborhood diner.
6:22
Speaker 1: It was a waffle house, and it was late at night.
6:24
Speaker 1: We had flown We were driving on you know, the
6:27
Speaker 1: kind of a desolate country road in North Carolina, and
6:30
Speaker 1: there was this really small town that had they had
6:33
Speaker 1: the you know, the waffle house. So we were like, oh,
6:35
Speaker 1: let's go in there. And everyone looked at us like, dude,
6:38
Speaker 1: you're not from here. What are you doing? Dude? Like
6:41
Speaker 1: we had entered the Secret Society. And that is in
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Speaker 1: a nutshell the twenty twenty six Benny Awards. Whether you're
6:47
Speaker 1: a legend like moving Man mad or a newbie doesn't matter.
6:52
Speaker 1: And yes, before you send me the emails, and I
6:54
Speaker 1: know you're gonna send me emails and you will. The
6:58
Speaker 1: criticism that we get is fair. There are not enough
7:03
Speaker 1: new callers. That's one of the criticisms we get. We
7:05
Speaker 1: need to do better at that. Now that said, the
7:09
Speaker 1: one you did vote for early and often, SpongeBob SquarePants
7:15
Speaker 1: or at least a cheap TEAMU ripoff version a Star
7:19
Speaker 1: the runaway winner for Rookie Caller of the Year. And
7:23
Speaker 1: it wasn't even close. It was over at halftime, extended
7:28
Speaker 1: garbage time, as Marv Albert would say, And that is
7:32
Speaker 1: what you want. You just want more of that. You
7:37
Speaker 1: want more of that. You do Anthony and Louisiana Halla
7:42
Speaker 1: Reina not bad, not bad. He just calls up to
7:45
Speaker 1: flirt with Lorraine at this point. But you want more
7:49
Speaker 1: new blood, the young blood and even young but just
7:54
Speaker 1: want new voices, because what you really have here on
7:57
Speaker 1: the Ben Malor Show is a of regulars. You do now.
8:04
Speaker 1: The Game Show Contestant of the Year went to Coach
8:06
Speaker 1: Russell from Orlando, our favorite high school football coach who
8:09
Speaker 1: even called up this week Wall on spring break. He
8:14
Speaker 1: barely held off Coach Russell Jed who fled for Game
8:17
Speaker 1: Show Contestant of the Year from the Redneck Riviera by
8:20
Speaker 1: six votes, which is the kind of a margin that
8:24
Speaker 1: makes people accuse others of voter fraud. You had Hollering
8:29
Speaker 1: James finished third, which tells me either his fans showed
8:34
Speaker 1: up in force or nobody was paying attention, and possibly both,
8:39
Speaker 1: possibly both. You had Surfer Todd, the comedian, win Lame
8:43
Speaker 1: Joke Contributor of the Year in a landslide, which is perfect.
8:46
Speaker 1: That category is the soul of much of what we
8:50
Speaker 1: do here. Bad jokes delivered with tremendous confidence. Volume over efficiency,
8:57
Speaker 1: quantity over quality. It's the buffet line of jokes. You
9:02
Speaker 1: pile enough on the plate, something's bound to taste good.
9:06
Speaker 1: Something's gonna make you laugh. The ask Ben category is
9:12
Speaker 1: the one that makes you lean a little forward. And
9:15
Speaker 1: this is the one that really got a lot of attention.
9:18
Speaker 1: The tabloids were all over this. The paparazzo. You had
9:22
Speaker 1: Ferg Doog win over Alf the Alien Opiner. By how
9:27
Speaker 1: many votes? It was? It ten votes? No? Nine, No, eight,
9:34
Speaker 1: I don't think so seven, Come on six please five,
9:39
Speaker 1: I'd be fine, No not step five? Four, come on now? Three?
9:44
Speaker 1: Two the numbers two. Ferg Dog won by two votes
9:48
Speaker 1: over Alf the Alien Opiner. In that category, Donkey Sausage
9:53
Speaker 1: was right there, he was third. Fifteen votes separated the
9:58
Speaker 1: top three. Hundreds hundreds of people voting, and fifteen votes
10:03
Speaker 1: separated the top three, and the top two were separated
10:05
Speaker 1: by two votes. And that's not just close, that's maddening.
10:08
Speaker 1: That's the kind of result where Alf stays up all
10:11
Speaker 1: night and has turned to AI to try to gain
10:14
Speaker 1: the title of the you know, the ass ban or
10:18
Speaker 1: whatever else or whatever other category he feels like. And
10:21
Speaker 1: so that's where you replay the tape if you're Alf
10:23
Speaker 1: and you wonder like, where did he go wrong? Let's
10:25
Speaker 1: go to campaign headquarters right now. Now, the best crew
10:29
Speaker 1: fill in Brian No the No Show, which is no surprise,
10:35
Speaker 1: reliable often fills in for me. He's the most regular
10:38
Speaker 1: fill in. Study shows up, does his job, do your job,
10:43
Speaker 1: doesn't light the place on fire. Fox Sports Radio has
10:46
Speaker 1: not burned at all when Brian knows been there. Underrated
10:50
Speaker 1: Mary Mack, how about this marry the boardop finish second.
10:53
Speaker 1: That is a plot twist. That's your weight really moment.
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Speaker 1: Chris Plank in third feels exactly right, solid, always around,
11:07
Speaker 1: good host, big college sports guy who Yeah, we had
11:13
Speaker 1: the social media contributor to the year. The big upset
11:16
Speaker 1: here was not who won it? Ferd Dog edged out
11:20
Speaker 1: alf another heartbreaking loss for Alfie Allen Pinter. It's that
11:24
Speaker 1: Robbie the Mariner fan somehow was able to weasel his
11:30
Speaker 1: way into a top four. That's pretty impressive. That's a
11:33
Speaker 1: big upset. Knocked out mister nice guy and several legends
11:38
Speaker 1: Robbie the Mariner fan, who was like the kool aid
11:41
Speaker 1: man coming into the room. Oh yeah, just like that. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it was wild. What else did we have at the
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Speaker 1: Benny Award? Trying to thick here off the top of
11:49
Speaker 1: my head, we had, well, all right, drop of the year.
11:53
Speaker 1: This was a disaster. The good, the bad and the ugly.
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Speaker 1: This would be really ugly, not good. Yeah, I try
12:02
Speaker 1: to be gentle here. Two nominees. Two. We do an
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Speaker 1: entire year of radio, five nights a week. Two nominees.
12:12
Speaker 1: That's like living in a pizza place or living near
12:16
Speaker 1: a pizza place that only serves you crust like, no,
12:20
Speaker 1: I want I like the crust. That's my favorite part.
12:23
Speaker 1: I'd like some bubbles in the crust. But I would rather,
12:26
Speaker 1: I would rather I just kind of, you know, have
12:30
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Marcel from Brooklyn was the winner with
12:36
Speaker 1: welcome to the show, there, idiot, which is good, but
12:40
Speaker 1: come on, there were better drops or things that should
12:44
Speaker 1: have been drops. Well. Marcel edged out Hollering James in
12:50
Speaker 1: a category that was not that close. Cowboy John bradwe
12:53
Speaker 1: international caller of the Year. Very happy about that. Another
12:56
Speaker 1: dependable voice on the show. He's essentially of the furniture
13:00
Speaker 1: at Fox Sports Radio. He's been calling for twenty five years.
13:06
Speaker 1: Over twenty five years Fox Sports Radio started. I was
13:08
Speaker 1: one of the original weekend hosts on Fox Sports Radio,
13:13
Speaker 1: and we started out as a kind of a soft launch,
13:17
Speaker 1: soft launch. We were on in Pittsburgh, Binghamton, New York,
13:21
Speaker 1: a couple of other smaller locations around the United States,
13:25
Speaker 1: and somehow, some way, cowboy John Brad found the network
13:29
Speaker 1: on some station that boomed into windsor I don't know where,
13:34
Speaker 1: and started calling. And he's still calling and still calling
13:38
Speaker 1: and calling. Legally blind Christopher who moved to London literally
13:43
Speaker 1: across an ocean, and still calls the show. He got divorced,
13:49
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons he moved to London. It
13:51
Speaker 1: so that's either loyalty or something we should all be
13:54
Speaker 1: a little concerned about. You had my guy Salsa calling
13:59
Speaker 1: in from random countries because of his airline job. That's
14:05
Speaker 1: that's fun, right, gets travel all over the place, and
14:07
Speaker 1: that's a little texture to the show. Jedhu Fled won
14:11
Speaker 1: the very coveted Intoxicated Caller of the Year with forty
14:15
Speaker 1: four percent of the vote, a landslide win. Mouthwash Mike
14:19
Speaker 1: would have could have should have done better. Unfortunately he
14:22
Speaker 1: doesn't call very often. When he does, it's very memorable
14:26
Speaker 1: as our guy mouthwash Mike living on the streets of Vegas.
14:30
Speaker 1: He finished in second, and there were the you know,
14:33
Speaker 1: usual sneak ups that got in that category that were there,
14:39
Speaker 1: But this this category. Intoxicated Call of the Year is
14:43
Speaker 1: the category that is messy. It is complicated, sometimes heartbreaking,
14:50
Speaker 1: sometimes heartbreaking, and you hear them and it's raw and
14:54
Speaker 1: it's unfiltered, and and that's it. The Female caller of
14:59
Speaker 1: the Year, this would be the best as well, the
15:02
Speaker 1: not the ugly, the bad. The female call of the
15:04
Speaker 1: year Andrea the Astrology Lady who won easily. Of course
15:08
Speaker 1: she won easily. She's her own brand at this point.
15:12
Speaker 1: She's consistent and she delivers the goods right. But they
15:18
Speaker 1: are only two nominees. Two two. You either have to
15:24
Speaker 1: get more nominees or just get rid of the category.
15:27
Speaker 1: You gotta get rid of the category if there's only
15:29
Speaker 1: two nominees. From now on we try to get rid
15:31
Speaker 1: of these categories. We need more than two. The Worst
15:35
Speaker 1: Caller of the Year went to Mike the Leprechaun, who's
15:38
Speaker 1: putting together the Boston Malar Meet and Greet Mike the
15:42
Speaker 1: Leprechaun with Blind Scott and Poppy right behind. And I
15:48
Speaker 1: love this category because it's honest. Every show needs a villain,
15:53
Speaker 1: Every show needs someone who makes you grown right and
15:58
Speaker 1: makes the host react, makes the audience feel something. You
16:02
Speaker 1: the listener even if that's something is please hang up
16:06
Speaker 1: on this douche canoe? Even is that? And then the
16:11
Speaker 1: big one, the Big ragou the Genie in Medford Memorial
16:17
Speaker 1: Caller of the Year, the highest honor and overnight sports Radio.
16:21
Speaker 1: Now we mentioned that weed Man Hippie was the winner,
16:24
Speaker 1: But now you're about to hear the rest of the story.
16:27
Speaker 1: As Paul Harvey said back in his day, weed Man Hippie,
16:31
Speaker 1: is it true that he barely barely was the winner
16:38
Speaker 1: of the Caller of the Year, the Genie in Medford
16:40
Speaker 1: Memorial Caller of the Year. Is it also true that
16:45
Speaker 1: weed Man Hippie finished just thirteen votes, thirteen votes ahead
16:50
Speaker 1: of Marcel in Brooklyn. Is it also true that Blind Scott,
16:55
Speaker 1: who's now retired the name Blind Scott until next week
17:00
Speaker 1: when Blind Scott returns, finished third. That is perfection. That
17:05
Speaker 1: is thoughtingly ie at Ohio State Football. That's the show.
17:10
Speaker 1: People don't really leave, they don't. They just kind of
17:15
Speaker 1: fade in and out, in and out, because that's what
17:19
Speaker 1: a radio show is all about. They're like characters in
17:22
Speaker 1: a long running series. And a great example of that.
17:26
Speaker 1: And we'll probably talk more about this tomorrow on the
17:29
Speaker 1: podcast but the return of our friend from Australia, which
17:33
Speaker 1: was great to hear, love it Ozzie momentum. So what
17:38
Speaker 1: do we make of all this? To put a bow
17:40
Speaker 1: on the Bennies. It's a fun show. It's a weird show.
17:43
Speaker 1: It's a show built on habit and being familiar with
17:49
Speaker 1: whatever this thing of a jig is. And it doesn't
17:55
Speaker 1: always make sense. In fact, it often doesn't make sense
17:57
Speaker 1: to outside its people that don't listen to the show.
17:59
Speaker 1: They don't get it. They don't know what we're doing here,
18:02
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, I don't understand. This is like
18:05
Speaker 1: some kind of foreign language. It's a variety show. I
18:08
Speaker 1: don't get it. Yeah, and you're not supposed to get it. Yeah,
18:14
Speaker 1: you're not. Now, we do need new blood. Every show
18:17
Speaker 1: needs new blood. Not because the regulars are not good.
18:21
Speaker 1: You guys are great. It's because every ecosystem needs new oxygen.
18:26
Speaker 1: Otherwise you get very comfortable, and comfortable is the enemy
18:29
Speaker 1: of interesting. And we don't want to be barring because
18:33
Speaker 1: then they'll cancel the show. So we will do at
18:37
Speaker 1: least one newby Night every month, so that means next
18:41
Speaker 1: week we will have a newby Night. I don't believe
18:45
Speaker 1: we've done one here in the month of March. I
18:47
Speaker 1: know we did one in January and February. I don't
18:48
Speaker 1: believe we've done the one in March. I might be
18:50
Speaker 1: wrong on that, but we'll have a newby night. And
18:54
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like dropping manure if you're
18:58
Speaker 1: trying to help the soil, that's what we're doing. So
19:01
Speaker 1: so I'll say it again, I love this stupid thing,
19:04
Speaker 1: the Benny's because at three in the morning, whether you're
19:06
Speaker 1: in Boston, Atlanta or Virginia Beach or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia,
19:12
Speaker 1: you're at three in the morning and most of the
19:15
Speaker 1: world sleeping, they're snoozing, and you, my people are calling
19:21
Speaker 1: in arguing, joking, it's open mic night. You're competing for
19:27
Speaker 1: imaginary awards, and somehow it just matters. It matters. And
19:33
Speaker 1: I did get a couple of emails I will not
19:36
Speaker 1: name the guilty, who were very upset that they were
19:39
Speaker 1: not One person was upset they weren't nominated. The other
19:41
Speaker 1: person was upset that they didn't win even though they
19:44
Speaker 1: were nominated. And so that happens every year, and it
19:48
Speaker 1: just happened yet again, where people get a little too
19:51
Speaker 1: invested and they start getting a little upset. Now, meanwhile,
19:56
Speaker 1: I wanted to turn the page on this because talk
19:59
Speaker 1: about my The Life of Mallet, which is normally on Saturday.
20:04
Speaker 1: I know this is Friday. I did want to share
20:05
Speaker 1: this with you. So there's two kinds of people that
20:07
Speaker 1: live in the Greater LA Area in terms of commuters.
20:10
Speaker 1: There's the ones that are stuck in traffic, and those
20:14
Speaker 1: are the people working the day shift. And then there's
20:15
Speaker 1: ones who think they've beaten the traffic. And I belong
20:19
Speaker 1: to that second group, which is how you know I
20:23
Speaker 1: am totally delusional. As the nocturnal kernel. I operate in
20:29
Speaker 1: the part of the clock normally reserved for the raccoon,
20:34
Speaker 1: the baker, the people that make some interesting choices in
20:39
Speaker 1: their life. And my commute from the Fox Sports radio
20:43
Speaker 1: studios to and that's in Sherman Oaks, in the San
20:46
Speaker 1: Fernando Valley and I to what I call the north Woods,
20:49
Speaker 1: a place far far away that my GPS sometimes size
20:53
Speaker 1: at before giving me the proper directions. It's a long
20:56
Speaker 1: drive at that hour. Right at that hour, the freeway
21:00
Speaker 1: is mostly empty, no brake lights stretching to the horizon.
21:06
Speaker 1: There's no guy in a least neon blue BMW trying
21:12
Speaker 1: to merge through your soul, while on the other side
21:15
Speaker 1: there's a cherry red Ferrari that somehow is able to
21:18
Speaker 1: zoom past you, even though there's traffic all over the place,
21:22
Speaker 1: cutting in and out of traffic like it's cranked on.
21:24
Speaker 1: It's afterburners. And so when I'm driving it's at night,
21:28
Speaker 1: it's mostly open road. It's a few scattered headlights and
21:31
Speaker 1: the occasional reminder that the world that we're in, the civilization,
21:36
Speaker 1: is hanging on by a thread. The biggest OBSTACLEPT is
21:41
Speaker 1: the cone zone, those orange traffic cones, because they're always
21:44
Speaker 1: working on the roads at night, the caltrans which is
21:48
Speaker 1: the California Transportation people. They're out there and doing their thing,
21:53
Speaker 1: and of course they don't fix the road because the
21:56
Speaker 1: roads are terrible. I don't know what they're doing. I
21:58
Speaker 1: think they just set everything up so it looks like
22:00
Speaker 1: they're working and they're playing Solitaire, like Stephen A at
22:03
Speaker 1: an NBA Finals game, and so they only seem to
22:08
Speaker 1: fix a lot. They just kind of rearranged things. And
22:11
Speaker 1: even that is you know, the expectations are rearranged, is manageable.
22:16
Speaker 1: So again, mostly it's smooth sale. Mostly it's smooth sailing
22:20
Speaker 1: on my commute. I say, mostly, that's a weasel word.
22:24
Speaker 1: And here's why. Because this week, the overnight shift, I
22:30
Speaker 1: was reminded that it has its own wildlife. Now, I'm
22:34
Speaker 1: not talking about deer, coyotes or anything like that. You
22:37
Speaker 1: do see the coyote. I don't see any deer. I
22:39
Speaker 1: do see the coyote. I'm talking about drunk drivers, wrong
22:44
Speaker 1: way drivers. Sometimes a two for one special I've had.
22:46
Speaker 1: There was one week back to back in that week
22:51
Speaker 1: I saw wrong way drivers. Then I saw another one
22:54
Speaker 1: in Pasadena somehow ended up on the two ten, going
22:58
Speaker 1: the wrong way, high on something, high on something. Generally,
23:05
Speaker 1: you know there's a lot going on, even though you
23:10
Speaker 1: don't notice it because the traffic's not that big, and
23:12
Speaker 1: there's certain people that believe that they're auditioning for the
23:15
Speaker 1: Autobahn Olympics. So low traffic environment, high on the drama,
23:21
Speaker 1: o rama and the existential intrigue. So the other night,
23:27
Speaker 1: as all good stories begin, I'm driving home in a
23:31
Speaker 1: state of mind that I would describe. I guess I
23:34
Speaker 1: call it medium, crispy, not asleep, not fully alive, just
23:39
Speaker 1: kind of marinating in the moment. And I see something
23:42
Speaker 1: odd up ahead, and you know what is that? It
23:45
Speaker 1: looks like a cloud. It's kind of a clear night.
23:48
Speaker 1: Clouds are not illegal, they're not. I checked, and in
23:54
Speaker 1: some countries they are, but not here. However, this one
23:57
Speaker 1: was a little suspicious. It was hovering over the freeway
24:01
Speaker 1: like it had missed its exit, and the sky was
24:04
Speaker 1: otherwise again pretty clear, just a lonely patch of vapor.
24:09
Speaker 1: So it appeared hanging out over the highway like it
24:12
Speaker 1: was waiting for someone, and it's possible it was me.
24:16
Speaker 1: So I got closer. I realized that this was not
24:20
Speaker 1: your standard issue cloud. This was a man made cloud,
24:25
Speaker 1: the kind that comes with a light show. There was
24:28
Speaker 1: a glow underneath, and not a gentle glow. This was
24:33
Speaker 1: a hey is that the moon? Kind of glow? This
24:37
Speaker 1: was It was not that. It was not hey is
24:39
Speaker 1: that the moon? This was a did the sun forget
24:42
Speaker 1: to clock out? Kind of glow. So I rounded the
24:45
Speaker 1: bend in the road and there it was an eighteen wheeler,
24:50
Speaker 1: a monster of the midway, fully engulfed in flames, not
24:56
Speaker 1: smoking a little bit, not sparkling, not might go up
25:00
Speaker 1: in flames. Not hey, someone might want to check this out.
25:03
Speaker 1: I am talking full blown end of the world armageddon,
25:10
Speaker 1: campfire from hell type situation, the kind of fire that
25:14
Speaker 1: makes you instinctively check your eyebrows to make sure that
25:19
Speaker 1: they're still there. And you see these trucks, and I
25:22
Speaker 1: know a lot of you guys are truck drivers. You
25:23
Speaker 1: see these trucks, I do, and they look indestructible to me.
25:27
Speaker 1: It blows my mind that something like this could happen,
25:30
Speaker 1: Like these things were built in a lab, these trucks
25:34
Speaker 1: by people who did not trust gravity. And you see
25:38
Speaker 1: one of them up close and think, yeah, you know,
25:41
Speaker 1: if there's ever a robot uprising, these things are getting
25:45
Speaker 1: drafted by the bots. They're getting drafted by the bots.
25:48
Speaker 1: And here was one reduced to a bonfire. This truck,
25:53
Speaker 1: it looked to paint the picture. It looked like a
25:57
Speaker 1: beached blue whale, if the blue whale that was beached
26:02
Speaker 1: had been set on fire, so there'd be blubber in
26:05
Speaker 1: the air everywhere by some kind of angry god. This
26:11
Speaker 1: massive hulking machine, this giant truck, surrendering to the flame,
26:20
Speaker 1: just going to the flame and surrendering and all that
26:24
Speaker 1: the flames lit up the entire night sky. It was
26:28
Speaker 1: like someone had dropped a second sun right there on
26:33
Speaker 1: the shoulder. You didn't need headlights, you had needed sunscreen.
26:36
Speaker 1: Firefighters and police were already on the scene. They had
26:40
Speaker 1: shut down the highway on the side, which felt like
26:44
Speaker 1: a wise choice, felt like the right thing to do.
26:47
Speaker 1: Their strategy appeared to be let it burn, let it burn,
26:50
Speaker 1: let it burn, but professionally, we'll make sure the fire
26:53
Speaker 1: doesn't spread. But we're not putting this thing out because
26:56
Speaker 1: I don't know if that enough water or whatever it was.
26:58
Speaker 1: But they were not charging like they do in the
27:01
Speaker 1: movies with the fire hoses. There was no dramatic slow
27:05
Speaker 1: motion heroics, just to calm control, acknowledgment that sometimes fire
27:11
Speaker 1: wins the first round, and when fire wins the first round,
27:15
Speaker 1: there's no second round. So on my side of the highway,
27:19
Speaker 1: my side of the freeway, traffic slowed as much as
27:22
Speaker 1: it can at that time of the night, not because
27:25
Speaker 1: we had to, because we're human. Rubbernecking is our national pastime.
27:32
Speaker 1: You could put up a sign that says nothing to
27:35
Speaker 1: see here, and we'd form a line just to verify
27:37
Speaker 1: there's nothing to see here. It's called LOOKI loo is
27:41
Speaker 1: the term, and every every driver turned into a part
27:46
Speaker 1: time investigator. The head shifted, the speed dropped. Somewhere a
27:52
Speaker 1: guy probably tried to take a selfie with the inferno
27:55
Speaker 1: in the background. It was not me. I did try
27:58
Speaker 1: to take a photo of it. I thought better of it.
28:01
Speaker 1: There wasn't attempt made. It didn't come out very good,
28:04
Speaker 1: and so I get it. The point is I get it.
28:08
Speaker 1: It was mesmerizing because these trucks, again for those of
28:12
Speaker 1: those they just look to me, they feel invincible. You
28:15
Speaker 1: don't want to get an action of the truck. They're
28:17
Speaker 1: the kind of a vehicle that can just mash you
28:21
Speaker 1: into bits. They're the king of the road, the apex
28:24
Speaker 1: predator of the asphalt. And then in one moment, one
28:29
Speaker 1: bad break, one spark or whatever, and it was all over,
28:33
Speaker 1: kaboom for the truck. I don't know what happened to
28:35
Speaker 1: the driver. I think the driver was okay. It didn't
28:37
Speaker 1: even look like a collision. And the reason I say
28:41
Speaker 1: that the truck was pulled over to the side of
28:43
Speaker 1: the road like it had politely excused itself from traffic
28:48
Speaker 1: before spontaneously combusting right there on the highway, which if
28:53
Speaker 1: you're going to have a catastrophe failure, it was very
28:57
Speaker 1: considerate to pull over to the side of the road
29:01
Speaker 1: and do it. Now as I drove past, and I'm
29:06
Speaker 1: rubber necking right again. That's my I love the word rubbernecking.
29:10
Speaker 1: I had one of those moments where the brain takes
29:12
Speaker 1: a snapshot, a mental polaride, and a litt Kodak moment.
29:17
Speaker 1: You don't decide to remember it. It just kind of
29:20
Speaker 1: flies itself away. And I've got a few of those.
29:24
Speaker 1: There was the time on the road from Vegas back
29:27
Speaker 1: to La a windy, scorching desert night, when an eighteen
29:32
Speaker 1: wheeler hauling tesla's flipped over. Now do I know that?
29:36
Speaker 1: Because traffic was to a snarl, Ten brand new cars
29:41
Speaker 1: scattered across the highway. It felt like someone had shaken
29:46
Speaker 1: a snow globe filled with these these teslas, and some
29:51
Speaker 1: were mangled beyond recognition. Others looked the other ones kind
29:58
Speaker 1: of looked. Some of them they were varying degree on
30:00
Speaker 1: this looked like they had just given up and laid down.
30:03
Speaker 1: It felt like the final scene of an apocalypse movie
30:08
Speaker 1: where the audience puts down the popcorn is wondering what
30:12
Speaker 1: went wrong and whether anyone remembered to turn off the stove,
30:17
Speaker 1: by the way, And now I can still see that
30:20
Speaker 1: accident out in the Vegas desert if I close my eyes.
30:25
Speaker 1: And now I've added another entry into my personal NFT collection.
30:32
Speaker 1: The burning truck, a man made cloud, the freeway turned
30:37
Speaker 1: into a fire lit stage jump. And these are some
30:43
Speaker 1: of the souvenirs that you get when you do the
30:45
Speaker 1: late night commute. There no t shirts, no key chains,
30:49
Speaker 1: no sippy cup, just memories. Memories that stick whether you
30:53
Speaker 1: want them or not. I can still recall the wrong
30:55
Speaker 1: way drivers, the two times that happened. It's three times
30:58
Speaker 1: it's happened in my life, but two in the same week,
31:01
Speaker 1: A two for one in the same week. Now, the
31:04
Speaker 1: funny thing is, I'll make that same drive next week,
31:09
Speaker 1: the same exact route or route, same car, same quiet
31:14
Speaker 1: hum of the road, and I'll think nothing ever happens
31:18
Speaker 1: out here. It's just barren at this time. Because that's
31:23
Speaker 1: what we do, that's what you do, and that's what
31:25
Speaker 1: we do. We convince ourselves that the road is predictable,
31:29
Speaker 1: life is predictable, that the machines we build are solid,
31:34
Speaker 1: and everything is under control until it isn't. So yeah,
31:39
Speaker 1: drive save kids. And if you see a cloud hovering
31:44
Speaker 1: over the freeway at three am, maybe you don't assume
31:49
Speaker 1: it's just the weather. You feel me on that. On
31:53
Speaker 1: that note, we will put the baby to bed. Have
31:56
Speaker 1: a wonderful Friday. We'll have new episodes of the fifth
32:00
Speaker 1: Our podcast on Saturday and Sunday with more stories to tell.
32:05
Speaker 1: I got a humdinger of a story I will try
32:08
Speaker 1: to pass on to you from one of the more
32:13
Speaker 1: unexpected things I've seen in my life, which actually happened
32:17
Speaker 1: last weekend. But worry about that on the Saturday podcast.
32:20
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful, glorious rest of your Friday, and we
32:25
Speaker 1: will chat with you tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow later. Skater gotta murder.
32:34
Speaker 1: I gotta go