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The Fifth Hour: 2026 Benny's Preview! · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Kabooms.
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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
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Speaker 2: of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
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Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
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Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
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Speaker 2: hot takes, break Free for something special. The Fifth Hour
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Speaker 2: with Ben Maller starts right now.
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Speaker 1: In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben
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Speaker 1: Mahler and Danny g Radio. We have this podcast on
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Speaker 1: Lockdown on this Friday, the thirteenth day of March, a
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Speaker 1: very special day. On this podcast, we have the Democracy
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Speaker 1: of the Circus, fun Zone of mirrors and break lights,
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Speaker 1: and we'll see what else we have time for. But
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Speaker 1: we begin with this after doing a full week of
1:02
Speaker 1: overnight radio, we're back here and on most nights. On
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Speaker 1: most nights in the sports radio overnight world, the stakes
1:13
Speaker 1: are rather modest. Right you play the numbers game, there's
1:16
Speaker 1: a few sports takes, Malard monologues for those. There's some
1:20
Speaker 1: Insomniacs commercials for we Bowl Tire, Rack Express Pros. There's
1:27
Speaker 1: a handful of callers, some of them sound like they're
1:31
Speaker 1: broadcasting from inside a washing machine. But you know what
1:36
Speaker 1: that means. Once a year. Once a year, somewhere between
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Speaker 1: the witching hour and the first time you pull over
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Speaker 1: to get a refill of coffee. I don't drink coffee,
1:47
Speaker 1: but I'm told that many of you, you know who
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Speaker 1: you are, you gotta get that refill of coffee when
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Speaker 1: you're out there driving on the highways and the byways.
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Speaker 1: So somewhere between that, the circus tent goes up, and
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Speaker 1: we asked the question, why is this night different from
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Speaker 1: all other nights? Well, you're about to find out. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the twenty twenty six Benny Awards pregame show, the
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Speaker 1: overnight radio equivalent of the Oscars. If the red carpet
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Speaker 1: ran through a truck stop somewhere in Barstow and the
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Speaker 1: nominees occasionally called up while doing a backstroke from the
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Speaker 1: Blagio fountain. If you know what I mean, the real
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Speaker 1: ones know what I mean. Yep. It is not just
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Speaker 1: the Ben Maler Show, No, no, no, no, no, It's
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Speaker 1: more than that, because on this night, it is the
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Speaker 1: night to celebrate the things, the quirkiness, the wildness that
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Speaker 1: make the Overnight Show. What it is the annual awards ceremony,
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Speaker 1: a metaphorical black tie event, at least in spirit. No sobriety,
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Speaker 1: no sobriety. Somewhere in the dark corner of the night sky,
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Speaker 1: under the cover of the moonlight, the Malard Militia, and
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Speaker 1: you say it's Friday, the things not until Sunday night.
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Speaker 1: The Maller Militia is buzzy. It's a beehive that just
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Speaker 1: discovered extreme caffeine. Now is that hyperbole, of course yes,
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Speaker 1: But then again, hyperbole is the oxygen. That's what we
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Speaker 1: need late at night to do talk radio. The most
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Speaker 1: important Benny election of our lifetime. It is naturally, of course,
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Speaker 1: every year, every year the most important year until next
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Speaker 1: year when that's the most important, just like every election
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Speaker 1: is the most important election, and every reality show finale.
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Speaker 1: It is the most shocking in history. Now, the people
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Speaker 1: that do a TV we do, obviously, but the people
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Speaker 1: that new TV learned long ago that if you don't
4:04
Speaker 1: inflate the balloon, nobody notices it's floating. Nobody notices a
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Speaker 1: Remember the late great Craig Sager sideline reporter for Turner Sports,
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Speaker 1: and it was very popular covering the NBA and he
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Speaker 1: wore these outrageous costumes when he was doing TNT. And
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Speaker 1: I ran into Craig a few times at the arena
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Speaker 1: called Staples Center which is now called something else, the
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Speaker 1: crypt or whatever it's called. And Craig would show up
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Speaker 1: and do his pregame routine in just regular clothes, just
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Speaker 1: regular outfit, and go interview the coaches and go to
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Speaker 1: the meetings, the production meetings. He'd have dinner in the
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Speaker 1: chicken and press room, eating his food and wearing just
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Speaker 1: regular clothes. And then about half an hour, about half
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Speaker 1: an hour before showtime, before the broadcast began, Craig Sager
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Speaker 1: would go into the to the powder room, and it
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Speaker 1: was like his phone booth. He came out dressed in
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Speaker 1: some kind of ridiculous over the top outfit, and he
5:09
Speaker 1: was ready to go, and everyone knew who he was.
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Speaker 1: He was good. But if he'd just been good wearing
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Speaker 1: regular clothes, nobody would have known he wore these outrageous outfits.
5:17
Speaker 1: I also worked with a guy named Victor Brick, the Great.
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Speaker 1: We've had him on this podcast, The Great Victor Brig Jacobs.
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Speaker 1: Same situation, so same deal. Still the Benny Awards, which
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Speaker 1: is what we're here. This is the pregame show. Have
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Speaker 1: become something of a folk tradition with the p once.
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Speaker 1: It is a carnival of characters, and you know a
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Speaker 1: lot of them, you know the names. They dial the
5:40
Speaker 1: show up. They send messages from behind their smartphones from
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Speaker 1: every time zone. People internationally emotional. It's really the emotional
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Speaker 1: zip code, if you will, of the nocturnal audience and
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Speaker 1: think of it as talk radios verse version of the
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Speaker 1: County Fair Talent Show. But that's it's also the Mallard Palooza.
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Speaker 1: This is more to celebrate celebrate good times. So it's
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Speaker 1: kind of like a talent show every night on the show,
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Speaker 1: except the livestocks sometimes will call up and argue about
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Speaker 1: the Seattle Seahawks secondary or the Salary Cap or something
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Speaker 1: like that. Now, one of the night's more charming categories
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Speaker 1: is the Rookie Caller of the Year. Everyone loves a rookie,
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Speaker 1: which kind of reads like a scouting report from the
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Speaker 1: world's most eccentric draft board. We've got Anthony Louisiana, who
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Speaker 1: has become synonymous as he calls up and tries to
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Speaker 1: flirt with Lorena Hey, Lorena, SpongeBob SquarePants. How are we
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Speaker 1: to know whether that's the real SpongeBob or not. The
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Speaker 1: cartoon character now apparently calling overnight sports radio from a
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Speaker 1: phone somewhere beneath the sea. Mikey and the Insomniac, the
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Speaker 1: Pride of Tampa, whose brand is exactly what the name suggests,
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Speaker 1: Insomnia with commentary. There's d Block in Miami whose heart
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Speaker 1: is in Chicago. So a little bit of a riddle
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Speaker 1: when it comes to that. Quinzel from Oakland, another proud
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Speaker 1: member of the may I Flirt with Lorena Club, a
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Speaker 1: Lorena super fan member. Dorkoh, the comedian from Hawaii, proof
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Speaker 1: that even Paradise has its share of lovable odd balls.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely and Bugatti the Trucker, a rolling legend of the
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Speaker 1: highways and byeways of the Northeast. You've got Snooker from
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Speaker 1: North Las Vegas. We met him at the last mallor
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Speaker 1: meet and greet we did in Vegas. An Air Force
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Speaker 1: veteran who calls in and has a hot take. He
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Speaker 1: doesn't want to talk about the mainstream sports. He wants
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Speaker 1: to talk about the the oddball, the weird sports, the
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Speaker 1: non mainstream sports. So all of these people come together,
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Speaker 1: they're all rookies, right, They're all rookies. And if Hollywood
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Speaker 1: had casting directors for overnight radio callers right out of
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Speaker 1: Central Casting, they could not assemble a lineup more colorful
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Speaker 1: than these characters. And that's just not just rookies, it's
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Speaker 1: pretty much everything. The intoxication indexes through the roof. You've
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Speaker 1: got the Intoxicated Caller of the Year, and I'm not
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Speaker 1: going to go through every category because it's only a
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Speaker 1: thirty five minute podcast or something like that, but the
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Speaker 1: Intoxicated Caller of the Year, which sounds less like an
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Speaker 1: award and more like a public health advisory. Get somebody
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Speaker 1: from the White House over here. So you got keg
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Speaker 1: drinking Steve from Kansas City who hasn't called in a while,
8:53
Speaker 1: but he leads the field. A man whose relationship with
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Speaker 1: beverages is less casual and more of a contract rual agreement.
9:01
Speaker 1: Jadot in Utah. Now we lost Jay Dot, tragically forced
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Speaker 1: into the dreaded day shift, a cruel twist of fate
9:09
Speaker 1: for someone who thrives on the neon glow of calling
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Speaker 1: a radio show at one in the morning. My personal
9:18
Speaker 1: favorite is Mouthwash Mike, who has swam Swamp Swam swam
9:25
Speaker 1: speak that would help swam in the Bellagio fountains multiple times. Now,
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Speaker 1: how do you know who mouthwash Mike is? Mouthwash Mike
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Speaker 1: is the guy that carries a bottle of yellow basic
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Speaker 1: mouthwash like a lucky charm. Then there's another one of
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Speaker 1: my favorites, Mike and Tucson, who once handed the phone
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Speaker 1: to his wife in a hospital. Right she's in the hospital.
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Speaker 1: And even for late night Radio that we had to pause.
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Speaker 1: That was wild. Another wild moment happened from the Black
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Speaker 1: Irishman who is one of our nominees in Omaha. This
10:01
Speaker 1: happened just a few weeks ago. If you were listening,
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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you know what I'm gonna bring up.
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Speaker 1: But the Black Irishman, he woke up his elementary school
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Speaker 1: age daughter at about four in the morning so she
10:13
Speaker 1: could say hello on the show Fast Asleep Daughter sleeping, Hey,
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Speaker 1: wake up, say hello to Ben. And then there's Jed
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Speaker 1: who fled from the Redneck Riviera, a man whose resume
10:27
Speaker 1: of chemical adventures is so over the top he has
10:32
Speaker 1: qualified to get a job at Walgreens or CBS. So
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Speaker 1: if the Nobel Committee ever expands into the field of
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Speaker 1: questionable decision making, the Nobel Prize for Questionable decision Making.
10:48
Speaker 1: The Bennies already have a short list of candidates. We've
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Speaker 1: already done that. There's the woman division, which is really
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Speaker 1: going away. I don't know what we can do to
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Speaker 1: get more of the ladies to be involved in the show.
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Speaker 1: With the Female Caller of the Year category very straightforward.
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Speaker 1: You've got Andrea, the astrology insider who mixes sports talk
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Speaker 1: with planetary alignment and the horoscope and all that. And
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Speaker 1: then there's Robin in Ventura, a study voice who does
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Speaker 1: not like Mike the Leprechaun. And that's it, that's all.
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Speaker 1: That's that's the big board, not a list Terry in England.
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Speaker 1: That's a big board in a carnival full of noise.
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Speaker 1: Full of noise. Sometimes the commis voices carry the carry
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Speaker 1: the first furthest And then there is the category every
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Speaker 1: award show secretly loves, and we're no different on the Bennies,
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Speaker 1: we are no different. Worst Caller of the Year officially
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Speaker 1: branded the Beer Drinking Brian Memorial Trophy, another great character
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Speaker 1: on the show. Beer Drinking Brian from Minnesota lived in Missouri,
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Speaker 1: had half pint with him riding shotgun and there they were,
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Speaker 1: And this award the worst caller very competitive. This and
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Speaker 1: the alcoholic category right near the top intoxic kitty category,
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Speaker 1: so the beer drinking Brian Memorial Trophy. Here are the nominees,
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Speaker 1: including e Dog from Long Island, who's become the master
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Speaker 1: of the non sequitur. It just is he talks about
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Speaker 1: things that are not related. Mike the Leprechaun, a man
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Speaker 1: whose controversial style combines a lot of sunscreen and dad jokes.
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Speaker 1: No one else has this this slice of talk radio
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Speaker 1: sunscreen and dad jokes, Hollering James, whose snore score has
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Speaker 1: become its own form of performance art. Poppy in San Diego,
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Speaker 1: who thinks that you want to hear Poppy's picks when
12:45
Speaker 1: really you want nothing to do with poppy picks. Right,
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Speaker 1: You're like, oh my god, I need to hide. I
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Speaker 1: got to get out of here. Why did you crash
12:55
Speaker 1: the party, Poppy. Then you've got Dorko, who returns for
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Speaker 1: a second nomination. Versatility like a human pocket knife. Dork O,
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Speaker 1: the comedian from Honolulu, Hawaii. Then there's Blind Scott, who's
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Speaker 1: been with me all these years, a caller who's on
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Speaker 1: air personality can swing from brilliant to bewildering, and the
13:16
Speaker 1: time it takes for him to clear his throat. There
13:19
Speaker 1: are so many personalities in there. He's like the evil
13:22
Speaker 1: Canieval of switching personalities. And it's a stunt show pretty
13:27
Speaker 1: much every night for Blind Scott. And every circus needs
13:30
Speaker 1: its clowns. Radio simply gives you, guys, who are the
13:34
Speaker 1: clowns the microphone, the big one, right, the big one,
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Speaker 1: the one that stands out head and shoulders above all
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Speaker 1: the rest, and just forget rookies are great, and the
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Speaker 1: booze crews and the lovable disasters. That's all the undercart
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Speaker 1: and there's some other categories International Caller of the Year.
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Speaker 1: And we're not going to do everything here because I
13:57
Speaker 1: want you to go and look and vote and all
13:59
Speaker 1: that and vote on X on Facebook. There's links on there.
14:03
Speaker 1: We'll send it out over the weekend so you can
14:06
Speaker 1: keep voting. You don't have to be on social media too.
14:09
Speaker 1: If you want it's not rolling upstream, just send me
14:12
Speaker 1: a email at either Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com.
14:19
Speaker 1: That's Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com, or send
14:21
Speaker 1: me a message at Ben Malors Show. I'll try to
14:24
Speaker 1: get back to you as quickly as I can, and
14:26
Speaker 1: I'll give you the link so you can vote. You
14:28
Speaker 1: need a Google account's free to get. Don't care if
14:31
Speaker 1: you use Google or not. But we had some people
14:34
Speaker 1: that were futzing around with this, so we needed some
14:38
Speaker 1: way to limit the damage that you exceptional losers are
14:43
Speaker 1: doing by hacking our contest. So that's what we did.
14:48
Speaker 1: That's what we did. So but anyway, the main event
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Speaker 1: is the Genie in Medford Caller of the Year, the
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Speaker 1: GENIEUM Medford Memorial Call of the Year. Now, to the
14:56
Speaker 1: uninitiated in the Malad Militia, if you're relatively new to
14:59
Speaker 1: the show, it's possible you just started working overnight and
15:02
Speaker 1: you found the show and you're in earshot now, and
15:05
Speaker 1: I begged you to listen to this podcast. So you've
15:07
Speaker 1: started listening to this podcast. To the uninitiated, genie and
15:12
Speaker 1: Medford might sound like just another name on the big board.
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Speaker 1: To the faithful, she is something closer to folklore. Everyone
15:24
Speaker 1: who was around in that era of the show has
15:26
Speaker 1: a Genie in Medford story, and they're all amazing, and
15:31
Speaker 1: they all sound like they can't be true, and they're
15:36
Speaker 1: all true. Just the gold standard right to the faithful again.
15:44
Speaker 1: She is mythical. She's mythical, right radio has it does
15:49
Speaker 1: have some legends. It's theater of the mind. It's characters
15:51
Speaker 1: who feel larger than the medium that it's there on.
15:57
Speaker 1: Genie was one of those voices. And we have these
15:59
Speaker 1: great debates when things get slow in the month of
16:03
Speaker 1: June and sports radio, the eternal arguments is it Jordan
16:07
Speaker 1: or Lebron, Brady or Montana? That certainly seems like it's
16:11
Speaker 1: been over. Some people are now trying to hype up
16:14
Speaker 1: Otani versus Babe Ruth. So it's that level. The Mala
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Speaker 1: Militia has its own uncontested heavyweight chip theand of the world,
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Speaker 1: and that is Genie in Medford. There is no debate,
16:26
Speaker 1: there is no recount needed. There is just reverence and
16:30
Speaker 1: to put in perspective how beloved Genie was. And she
16:34
Speaker 1: didn't know this. And I tried to tell her. She
16:36
Speaker 1: was on her deathbed and I talked to her and
16:38
Speaker 1: she couldn't even talk. She'd lost her voice from all
16:41
Speaker 1: the drugs and the booze and all that. It was
16:43
Speaker 1: very sad, and I told her, I want you to
16:45
Speaker 1: know how much people love you. And I didn't even
16:48
Speaker 1: realize how much people loved Genie and Medford. It was
16:51
Speaker 1: only after her death when she was by herself. She
16:54
Speaker 1: was a lonely woman and she had some family, but
16:58
Speaker 1: they she was kind of black sheep or whatever, and
17:01
Speaker 1: they forgot about her. So we raised some money for
17:07
Speaker 1: a burial memorial for Genie and Medford, and we thought
17:12
Speaker 1: we'd maybe get a couple bucks, maybe a couple hundred bucks,
17:16
Speaker 1: and it was thousands. It was thousands of We were
17:20
Speaker 1: amazed we had so much money that was donated. We
17:23
Speaker 1: were able to take care of the burial and the
17:27
Speaker 1: funeral expenses, and we had money left over where We
17:30
Speaker 1: have a plaque at Swan Boat Park. If you ever
17:33
Speaker 1: get to La, if you're in La, go check it
17:35
Speaker 1: out Swan Boat Park, where they've filmed a lot of commercials.
17:38
Speaker 1: It's really a cool thing. I think they've cleaned it up.
17:41
Speaker 1: I know they did. I don't know if it's back
17:42
Speaker 1: to being skid row at the park, but it's just
17:46
Speaker 1: a wonderful place. And right near the playground there's a
17:49
Speaker 1: park bench, there's frogs, and there's water and the whole thing.
17:53
Speaker 1: And there's a plaque dedicated to Genie in Medford and
17:56
Speaker 1: I thought, boy, that's really cool, and that was with
17:58
Speaker 1: the money. That's just because she was so beloved. So
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Speaker 1: the nominees for the award that bears that woman's name,
18:06
Speaker 1: the late great Genian Medford, the mount Rushmore of show regulars.
18:11
Speaker 1: You've got Lucky Tony always have to have your finger
18:15
Speaker 1: on the dump button, Blind Scott another a multi dimensional
18:21
Speaker 1: performance by Blind Scott, he can win multiple Bennies. Marcel
18:24
Speaker 1: and Brooklyn multi time Caller of the Year, Jed who
18:27
Speaker 1: fled from the Redneck Riviera, Rick and Maryland who's known
18:31
Speaker 1: for his catch phrase morning time weed Man, Hippie who's
18:36
Speaker 1: become a regular on the show, and Mike in New Hampshire.
18:41
Speaker 1: And each of them, each of these dudes has spent
18:44
Speaker 1: countless nights dialing in to our little audio circus, hoping
18:49
Speaker 1: to land a couple of minutes of airtime under the
18:52
Speaker 1: big top. Right, and that leads us to the Democracy
18:55
Speaker 1: of the Circus Award. Shows like the Bennies, Love Grand
19:01
Speaker 1: Language and the Bennies we really lean into it. The
19:04
Speaker 1: democracy of the audio circus is on the ballot. The
19:08
Speaker 1: soul of the maul or militia is at stake. History
19:14
Speaker 1: is watching. One can almost picture the political slogans going up. Now.
19:22
Speaker 1: Is it exaggerated? Of course? Of course, of course, of course. However,
19:27
Speaker 1: exaggeration is the currency of entertainment. Without it, what are
19:33
Speaker 1: you doing. I had this guy, Chris called up a
19:36
Speaker 1: couple weeks ago, and he was ranting and raving like
19:41
Speaker 1: the loser that he is, and he seemed to be
19:44
Speaker 1: upset that we try to do an entertaining show. He
19:48
Speaker 1: wanted some boring people to do the show. And I'm
19:53
Speaker 1: always blown away by that, Like, why would you bother
19:57
Speaker 1: listening to somebody who's so bogged down with ball I
20:00
Speaker 1: don't understand. I don't get that. It's all about entertainment,
20:04
Speaker 1: it's about show business and all that so and without it,
20:08
Speaker 1: you know we're in trouble. So in truth, the Benny
20:10
Speaker 1: Awards are something simpler and stranger. It's a reminder that radio,
20:17
Speaker 1: especially late nighty that's one of the reasons I loved
20:19
Speaker 1: as a kid radio. And they've got cameras in here,
20:24
Speaker 1: and I got to promote the YouTube thing. But at
20:27
Speaker 1: its core, however, at its core, radio is the greatest
20:32
Speaker 1: meetum because you use your imagination and everyone's got an imagination.
20:38
Speaker 1: Some people forget to use their imagination and they become
20:41
Speaker 1: jaded and old, and they don't be that person always
20:46
Speaker 1: enjoyed the imagination. You wonder, what does Jed who fled
20:50
Speaker 1: look like? You know, what's this SpongeBob guy? What's that
20:54
Speaker 1: all about? It calls a radio show at four thirty
20:57
Speaker 1: in the morning to be SpongeBob? What is that so? Again? Listen?
21:04
Speaker 1: Late night radio one of the last places where the
21:07
Speaker 1: ordinary person becomes a character and can make that happen
21:12
Speaker 1: as well. The Internet. Yeah, you're on the Internet and
21:15
Speaker 1: there's a gazillion body counts, and you know, there's so
21:20
Speaker 1: many people on there. It's like being a piece of
21:25
Speaker 1: sand on the beach. Well, yeah, you're on the beach. Congratulations. However,
21:29
Speaker 1: you're one of a gazillion little specks of sand and
21:32
Speaker 1: you don't stand out, and it doesn't really matter what
21:35
Speaker 1: you do. On our show, abracadabrajocus pocus, you've got truck drivers, janitors,
21:40
Speaker 1: trash men, crossing guards, insomniacs, gamblers, drug dealers, police officers,
21:47
Speaker 1: arresting drug dealers, night shift workers, and factories. Every voice
21:53
Speaker 1: gets a moment if they want, if they want, they
21:56
Speaker 1: don't have to call you know, nobody has to call in.
21:58
Speaker 1: We're fine. We can run the show perfectly fine without
22:01
Speaker 1: having anyone call in. We can do that, and we'd
22:05
Speaker 1: done it. We've done entire hours or shows without calls.
22:10
Speaker 1: So some things happened, though, right, something's happened where there
22:15
Speaker 1: are these moments that just are brilliant and they're unscripted
22:18
Speaker 1: and it just happens. Some are ridiculous, like when we
22:22
Speaker 1: mentioned the black irishman woke his daughter up in the
22:27
Speaker 1: middle of the night to say hello. Few were unforgettable,
22:32
Speaker 1: just completely unforgettable, like the night weed man hippie was
22:37
Speaker 1: calling in during a hurricane and was giving us updates
22:41
Speaker 1: all night as the hurricane made landfall on a lifeguard
22:45
Speaker 1: tower in Miami. Could have died, and I would have
22:52
Speaker 1: been blamed if they had figured out why he was
22:54
Speaker 1: on the lifeguard tower during a hurricane in Miami. I digress.
23:00
Speaker 1: And so you just know, somewhere out there, in a
23:06
Speaker 1: kitchen lit only by the glow of a radio dial,
23:11
Speaker 1: someone is rehearsing their next phone call, whether it's Cowboy
23:15
Speaker 1: John Brad or whoever. Because in the Malar circus, this
23:20
Speaker 1: particular Mallar circus. Anyone can grab the chrap piece, even SpongeBob,
23:27
Speaker 1: which makes a good sideline reporter. I think SpongeBob would
23:33
Speaker 1: be a really good sideline reporter. All right, Meanwhile, I
23:38
Speaker 1: want to share a brief story. Some of you notice this,
23:41
Speaker 1: many of you did not notice this. But the other night,
23:45
Speaker 1: it began with the illusion that it was normal. This
23:49
Speaker 1: was normalcy, right, normalcy and all that. And when you
23:56
Speaker 1: live in Los Angeles is usually the first warning sign
24:00
Speaker 1: and it's something abnormal is about to happen when you
24:03
Speaker 1: have the illusion of normalcy. So here here, I was
24:08
Speaker 1: just random overnight talk show dude and professional insomniac performing
24:14
Speaker 1: the normal pregame ritual, the routine on all creatures of
24:20
Speaker 1: habit to get ready for work and to be prepared.
24:25
Speaker 1: So I could provide you with a marginal overnight show
24:30
Speaker 1: as most people are sleeping, and you got the TV flickering.
24:36
Speaker 1: I got the World Baseball Classic on. I've put my
24:40
Speaker 1: notes together for the Malard monologues, the Forbidden Fruit real
24:45
Speaker 1: this is real hard luck story, by the way. Yeah,
24:48
Speaker 1: so just normal, normal, normal, normal, normal normal. I packed
24:53
Speaker 1: up my bag with my headphones and my mic condom
24:56
Speaker 1: and just another routine pilgrimage from the north Woods to
25:00
Speaker 1: the glowing citadel of sports chatter, the mothership in Sherman Oaks,
25:06
Speaker 1: the Fox Sports Radio compound, the compound there that we
25:09
Speaker 1: have in Sherman Oaks. Right at the four h five freeway,
25:13
Speaker 1: Get off there, Ventura and Sepulvida. Routine, dependable, like clockwork, which,
25:20
Speaker 1: as it turns out, is precisely the problem in a
25:24
Speaker 1: place where the clock had just changed, it had just changed.
25:28
Speaker 1: So before departure the ritual, I get a text from Sager,
25:35
Speaker 1: who's my liaison with social media. He's the one that
25:40
Speaker 1: rides the waves, jumps through hoops to put the social
25:44
Speaker 1: media stuff up. So he's my guy, and he's the
25:48
Speaker 1: digital town crier and the Mallard militia. And every week
25:52
Speaker 1: my week begins the same way. I get a text
25:56
Speaker 1: from Sager, who has the devotion of a monk, and says,
26:01
Speaker 1: you're gonna be in studio tonight. What's your schedule now?
26:05
Speaker 1: The answer was immediately and confidently, yes, normal week. This
26:11
Speaker 1: is in hindsight, it was very optimistic. I was being
26:16
Speaker 1: Benny Brightside. So I climbed into the malormobile and I
26:20
Speaker 1: began the journey to the studio, and La, if you've
26:25
Speaker 1: never been, is a place where travel is less about
26:28
Speaker 1: distance and more about emotional endurance. And you don't drive
26:35
Speaker 1: here so much as you participate in a civic obstacle
26:39
Speaker 1: course filled with potholes, people walking on the highway, people
26:44
Speaker 1: riding bikes that's not allowed by the way on the highway.
26:49
Speaker 1: You got asphalt in patience and some kind of existential
26:56
Speaker 1: crisis that's going on. So I get in the car.
26:59
Speaker 1: I'm stopped at the light, and I did what every
27:02
Speaker 1: modern driver does. I looked at the phone, and now
27:09
Speaker 1: I also made a decision. I decided to type in
27:15
Speaker 1: my route or route on the GPS. I summoned the
27:20
Speaker 1: oracle the maps app on my phone. The address for
27:24
Speaker 1: the Fox Sports radio compound was punched, a mirror formality,
27:28
Speaker 1: a ceremonial nod to technology, and then the number appeared
27:34
Speaker 1: estimated time of arrival three hours, a three hour tour.
27:41
Speaker 1: That's a dated reference. Does anyone get that three hours
27:45
Speaker 1: to travel? What is normally? I kid around about how
27:51
Speaker 1: long a community is. It's it's like get a little
27:54
Speaker 1: over an hour. This was double that and then some
27:59
Speaker 1: three hours. Sherman Oaks three hours to what should have
28:04
Speaker 1: been a very straightforward late night glide down the web
28:08
Speaker 1: of freeways that Angelino's recite like multiplication tables. He got
28:15
Speaker 1: the five over here, the four O five, the one
28:18
Speaker 1: oh one, the six oh five, seven ten, the one ten,
28:21
Speaker 1: the one oh five, fifty five fifty seven? What about
28:23
Speaker 1: the ninety one? Do I hear the ninety one? How
28:25
Speaker 1: about the sixty? Do I get the sixty? Okay? Good?
28:28
Speaker 1: I got the sixty? Do I see a ten? Is
28:30
Speaker 1: there a ten? Can the man in the back? Okay?
28:32
Speaker 1: For a moment? So again I typed this in said
28:35
Speaker 1: three hours. So I thought this was some kind of
28:38
Speaker 1: clerical error inside the app. The oracle. Surely, the what
28:43
Speaker 1: you might call it the mysterious digital brain guiding the map,
28:49
Speaker 1: had suffered some kind of malfunction. The dow Hickey wasn't working.
28:53
Speaker 1: There was a hiccup, a technical sneeze. The app was closed, reopened,
28:58
Speaker 1: and refreshed. Tutta, guess what the result? Identical? Three hours?
29:06
Speaker 1: Three hours. At this point I made a executive decision,
29:11
Speaker 1: an executive decision. The calculation became philosophical. A three hour
29:16
Speaker 1: drive from the north Woods to Los Angeles suggested this
29:21
Speaker 1: was some kind of cataclinic, some kind of some kind
29:26
Speaker 1: of tragic thing or something. I mean, I'm trying to
29:30
Speaker 1: put a words here. It's early. Bear with me, we're
29:33
Speaker 1: recording this. But one could clearly fly from Lax to
29:37
Speaker 1: Seattle in that time about three hours. I've made the
29:40
Speaker 1: flight a couple of times. It's been a Seattle a
29:41
Speaker 1: few times. About three hours. One could watch an entire
29:44
Speaker 1: baseball game and then postgame show as well. Alf could
29:48
Speaker 1: watch a Red Sox game and watch the nests in
29:50
Speaker 1: postgame it he'd be good to go. Ferk Dog could
29:52
Speaker 1: watch an Angel game and sleep for two and a
29:55
Speaker 1: half hours and then wake up and the game would
29:57
Speaker 1: be over. Yeah, and you'd also age visibly. So the
30:01
Speaker 1: freeways turned into this grotesque civic board game was more
30:09
Speaker 1: like a funhouse, like Welcome to the Funhouse of Mirrors
30:12
Speaker 1: and break lights. Freeway Bingo played with Rex instead of numbers.
30:16
Speaker 1: Accidents on the five, A stall on the four H five,
30:20
Speaker 1: I'm a congested on the one oh one, back up
30:23
Speaker 1: on the one ten, and a ripple effect spreading through
30:28
Speaker 1: the asphalt nervous system of southern California. Now somewhere in
30:33
Speaker 1: the distance I'm imagining a bunch of news helicopters hovering
30:39
Speaker 1: like vultures, police helicopters. There's some kind of accident there.
30:43
Speaker 1: The mind begins grasping and trying to find explanations. Now,
30:48
Speaker 1: this was the day of the LA Marathon. The Marathon's
30:51
Speaker 1: a daytime event like that couldn't have been it was
30:55
Speaker 1: there a rogue UFO that landed on the seven to
30:57
Speaker 1: ten freeway. Not probably not the creeping crud of post
31:03
Speaker 1: weekend commuters returning from San Diego to go face the battlefield,
31:09
Speaker 1: or perhaps the simplest explanation of all, just the clocks
31:14
Speaker 1: had changed, daylight savings time, the annual social experiment that
31:18
Speaker 1: our fearless politicians will not change, A collection of people
31:23
Speaker 1: that were confused, that apparently had quietly turned the freeway
31:29
Speaker 1: system into a sleep deprived pinball situation, bouncing through traffic,
31:35
Speaker 1: and all that. So, face with the available evidence that
31:38
Speaker 1: I had a reasonable suspicion that I would not make
31:41
Speaker 1: it to work on time. The clock was ticking tic
31:45
Speaker 1: tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic
31:47
Speaker 1: tic tic tic tic tic dick. So I made the
31:49
Speaker 1: only logical move one could make. I made a U turn.
31:51
Speaker 1: In the elguant vernacular, very elegant vernacular of southern California motoring.
31:57
Speaker 1: We like to say we flipped a bitch. That's right,
32:00
Speaker 1: pointed to the car and said, all right, do your thing.
32:05
Speaker 1: Cart flipped the bitch and headed back towards the north Woods.
32:09
Speaker 1: Retreated to the subterranean broadcasting bunker, Benny's bunker, this remote studio,
32:16
Speaker 1: which I'm in right now, in the bowels of the
32:19
Speaker 1: Malor mansion. The pilgrimage to Sherman Oaks was abandoned mid quest.
32:24
Speaker 1: The malordmobile retreated Northwood. We went up to the north
32:28
Speaker 1: Woods like a general pulling the troops from an unwinnable battle.
32:32
Speaker 1: If only General Custer had done that, the legend would
32:35
Speaker 1: not have would not have ended or been that way. Rather,
32:39
Speaker 1: the legend would have been, Hey, this guy's a hero,
32:41
Speaker 1: and that there you go, safely removed from the asphalt purgatory.
32:47
Speaker 1: Saved myself three hours of commute time at least, and
32:51
Speaker 1: the show conduct was conducted. And because in La the
32:55
Speaker 1: traffic is not merely transportation. It is theater. It's sociology.
33:01
Speaker 1: It's the drama, o rama performed by millions of men
33:05
Speaker 1: and women who are just reluctant actors trapped inside these
33:11
Speaker 1: metal boxes, and that's it. And on this particular evening,
33:15
Speaker 1: the Freeways had won. However, I consider a win because
33:20
Speaker 1: not only did I do the show per normal, and
33:22
Speaker 1: very few of you noticed that I was not in
33:26
Speaker 1: the mothership and there were no gremlins. I did not
33:30
Speaker 1: get attacked once by gremlins. That is a win win
33:35
Speaker 1: is that's how that goes. That's a win win. On
33:37
Speaker 1: that note, we will get out of here, have a
33:39
Speaker 1: wonderful rest of your Friday, enjoy that World Baseball Classic,
33:44
Speaker 1: and we'll have new podcasts for you tomorrow on Saturday,
33:47
Speaker 1: and then the mail bag on Sunday. If you would
33:50
Speaker 1: like to be part of the mail bag on Sunday,
33:52
Speaker 1: you can right in. And how do you do that, Well,
33:57
Speaker 1: you send an email to Real fifth hour at gmail
34:01
Speaker 1: dot com, all letters, no numbers, Real fifth Hour at
34:04
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. I have not yet seen an email
34:06
Speaker 1: from Reggie from Detroit yet he normally emails me very
34:09
Speaker 1: early in the week. I'm going to assume that he's okay,
34:12
Speaker 1: and we'll send an email between now and Sunday. And
34:16
Speaker 1: I don't see anything new from alf or Ferdog so
34:20
Speaker 1: there's opportunity if you want to get your letter read
34:22
Speaker 1: Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. That's Real fifth
34:25
Speaker 1: Hour at gmail dot com. Have a again, a great day,
34:30
Speaker 1: and keep that grind going and we'll talk to you
34:34
Speaker 1: next time Later. Skater Asta Pasta got a murder. I
34:41
Speaker 1: gotta go.