Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Suburban Superhero With Extension Cord

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The Fifth Hour: Suburban Superhero With Extension Cord · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Cut booms.
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 sole fastion of fairness. He
0:12
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
0:15
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearing House
0:19
Speaker 2: of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth
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Speaker 2: Hour with Ben Mallard starts right now.
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Speaker 1: In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me Ben Malor,
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Speaker 1: and we hang out together here on this eleventh day
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Speaker 1: of April. Happy Saturday to you back in the audio Sweatshop.
0:44
Speaker 1: That does not stop. This the secret menu item, not
0:48
Speaker 1: to be confused with the original recipe. This is the
0:50
Speaker 1: secret Menu Extra Crispy edition that is only available here
0:55
Speaker 1: in the podcast format. So we can say bad words,
0:58
Speaker 1: which I have done in the past on the podcas However,
1:01
Speaker 1: I would like to point out I have generally speaking
1:04
Speaker 1: stopped doing that because once I start cursing, and I
1:09
Speaker 1: don't know whether I'm on the radio or the podcast,
1:11
Speaker 1: it's all the same. I record this at odd hours
1:14
Speaker 1: and every Friday I do the overnight show and then
1:19
Speaker 1: go in and do the podcast, and it gets very
1:22
Speaker 1: confusing in the remote studio. So I've determined to try
1:26
Speaker 1: to ixnay the cursing a at this particular time, much
1:31
Speaker 1: to the dismay of Lucky Tony and some of the
1:33
Speaker 1: other fans who love to hear me say the F word,
1:37
Speaker 1: the C word, the B word, the D word, all
1:39
Speaker 1: those words. All those words and a programming node. On
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Speaker 1: this Saturday, the eleventh of April, if you missed the
1:48
Speaker 1: pod yesterday, the Fifth Hour podcast, we went into painstaking
1:53
Speaker 1: details giving you information on the upcoming Malard Meet and greet,
1:58
Speaker 1: the great Sojourn to Cincinnati, which will be coming up
2:03
Speaker 1: here in two weeks, two weeks from today. My god,
2:07
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. Two weeks from today we will
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Speaker 1: be hanging out there having a great time and looking
2:13
Speaker 1: forward to that. So go back in here, and some
2:15
Speaker 1: of you are already sending me email. I checked the
2:16
Speaker 1: email this morning before I cranked the mic on, and
2:20
Speaker 1: you said you're going to Ohio. You could have gone
2:22
Speaker 1: to Columbus. You could have gone somewhere in the middle
2:24
Speaker 1: of the state. Made it easier for people. You're going
2:26
Speaker 1: to Kentucky. It's the Kentucky Meet and Greet, it's not
2:30
Speaker 1: the Ohio meet and greet. I'm like, dude, this is
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Speaker 1: what I've been arguing. We are in the very tip
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Speaker 1: of northern Kentucky when we do the mallor meet and greet,
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Speaker 1: and a very fine restauranteur. It's a mom and pop
2:43
Speaker 1: We love supporting mom and pop businesses. It's part of
2:46
Speaker 1: a small chain, but it's individually owned and the guy
2:50
Speaker 1: that runs it is a friend of a friend and
2:53
Speaker 1: invited us in. And I'm excited. That pizza looks amazing.
2:57
Speaker 1: It's literally a couple miles, just like you can walk
3:01
Speaker 1: across a bridge, I am told and go to the
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Speaker 1: Reds game, which, oh, by the way, we very well
3:06
Speaker 1: might be doing that. We might be doing that. We
3:08
Speaker 1: might be going to the Reds game that night on
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Speaker 1: that on that Saturday, playing the Tigers, and the meet
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Speaker 1: and greet is from two to five, and so we'd
3:19
Speaker 1: have a little bit of time to hang out and
3:22
Speaker 1: walk and or drive if we want, and go and
3:25
Speaker 1: check out some Cincinnati Reds baseball. So we'll see about that.
3:30
Speaker 1: We're excited about a couple weeks away, So check out
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Speaker 1: that Friday podcast for all the details on that and
3:35
Speaker 1: the great Dick and Dayton get together as the Dixter
3:39
Speaker 1: will be the star of the show. And we're hoping
3:41
Speaker 1: some of these other big names. Again, we don't know
3:42
Speaker 1: who's going to be there, Justin and Cincinnati, a man
3:45
Speaker 1: of mystery, just Josh Ohio, al big names. We're hoping
3:51
Speaker 1: for an appearance by cardiac Stanley, who famously had a
3:53
Speaker 1: heart attack on the show years ago. And you never
3:56
Speaker 1: know who else is going to be there, So snap
3:59
Speaker 1: your finger, make that happen. Now. On this podcast, we
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Speaker 1: have audio contraband, a suburban superhero with an extension chord,
4:07
Speaker 1: and the daytime soap opera. We begin with this. We
4:12
Speaker 1: begin with this. There are holidays, and then there are
4:15
Speaker 1: broadcastable holidays. Town Today, on this Saturday, the worlds are
4:20
Speaker 1: combining together. The holidays of today feel less like calendar
4:29
Speaker 1: filler and more like programming notes from the audio gods
4:34
Speaker 1: out there in the cosmos. It is National Poutine Day.
4:38
Speaker 1: And but wait, there's more. It is Barbershop Quartet Day.
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Speaker 1: They have arrived like a double feature that no one,
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Speaker 1: no man, woman or child, asked for, yet somehow is
4:50
Speaker 1: perfectly suited for what we do. Our meat and potatoes
4:54
Speaker 1: overnight talk radio, where the absurdity is not a bug
4:58
Speaker 1: but a feature. In other words, today's goofy holidays are perfect.
5:03
Speaker 1: In the malor universe, we have a connection to both.
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Speaker 1: We'll start with the barbershop quartet day. It is a
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Speaker 1: hazel toned post guard to the late nineteenth century, back
5:14
Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties. The legend goes, as these things
5:19
Speaker 1: generally happened, This is eighteen eighties, men in straw hats
5:24
Speaker 1: waiting for a trim, waiting for a trim, passing time.
5:29
Speaker 1: Not with smartphones, those didn't exist. However, with four part harmony,
5:35
Speaker 1: what in the web it was? The idle noise turned
5:39
Speaker 1: into an art form which is still enjoyed all these
5:43
Speaker 1: years later, all these years they are over, almost one
5:45
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years later, and like most things quaint,
5:50
Speaker 1: it eventually collided with the modern sensibilities. And that would
5:55
Speaker 1: be where we enter the picture. The Ben Mahler Show,
5:58
Speaker 1: which about two decades ago, stumbled in to our own
6:03
Speaker 1: barber shop subplot put out. Now, if you've been with
6:07
Speaker 1: the show for some time, there's two things that are true.
6:11
Speaker 1: First of all, you're no spring chicken. Secondly, you likely
6:15
Speaker 1: remember this famous story. It was with a great Malmentton
6:17
Speaker 1: show history. Very proud of this that we had moved
6:21
Speaker 1: the needle back in the day, so many many years ago.
6:25
Speaker 1: In a land far far away, a Malard militia member
6:29
Speaker 1: who happened to be originally from Chicago, a super fan,
6:33
Speaker 1: sent me in my inbox a very interesting musical oddity
6:39
Speaker 1: titled the Chubby Cubby, The Chubby Cubby now the Chubby Cuby,
6:46
Speaker 1: a barber shop ditty that sounded like it had been
6:50
Speaker 1: marinated in hot dogs at Wrigley Field out in the
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Speaker 1: bleachers and then lightly dusted with innuendo. I'm saying it
7:00
Speaker 1: was ridiculous, it was catchy. This is back in the
7:03
Speaker 1: Sami Socid days of the Cubs. It was radio gold.
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Speaker 1: It was therefore deemed unacceptable for human consumption. Yes, I'm
7:12
Speaker 1: not making that up. This is many years ago, according
7:15
Speaker 1: to the program director at our Chicago affiliate at the time,
7:19
Speaker 1: which promptly treated it like contraband, and the song had
7:24
Speaker 1: been blacklisted. It was rebotan. The bit was exiled, only
7:29
Speaker 1: to be resurrected years later. When the Cubs finally did exercise,
7:35
Speaker 1: they finished the journey, they beat the Cleveland Indians and
7:38
Speaker 1: they exercise the curse of the Billy Goat. However, like
7:42
Speaker 1: many sequels, it suffered from the cruelest fate adequacy. Yeah,
7:49
Speaker 1: then there is poutine mentioned the two for one special.
7:52
Speaker 1: So Canada's most decinente export, the most important thing. Canada
7:57
Speaker 1: has given the world a dish that looks like it
8:00
Speaker 1: lost a bet. It looks like something you might see
8:04
Speaker 1: in a porta potty, and yet it tastes like it
8:08
Speaker 1: won the war. We're talking fries, gravy, cheese, curds, culinary chaos,
8:16
Speaker 1: assembled with bravado, assembled with rot. This dish originated in
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Speaker 1: Quebec in the nineteen sixties and then slowly made its
8:27
Speaker 1: way across Canada and eventually to the United States. For
8:33
Speaker 1: this show, poutine is not just a meal, and for
8:37
Speaker 1: me it was an event. It became an event a
8:41
Speaker 1: Vancouver meet and greet. You might remember we did the
8:43
Speaker 1: Vancouver Meet and Greet, which was a lot of fun,
8:46
Speaker 1: really cool, really cool stories. One of the guys showed
8:50
Speaker 1: up was a ball boy for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers
8:53
Speaker 1: back when he was a kid, and he showed up.
8:54
Speaker 1: He was very proud of that, and I was cool too,
8:56
Speaker 1: because that's always the team I mentioned in the Canadian
8:59
Speaker 1: Football League is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. So nonetheless, that
9:05
Speaker 1: event hosted by a loyalist and good friend of the show,
9:09
Speaker 1: our buddy Nico, who is a really really good dude,
9:12
Speaker 1: and someday we're gonna see this kid in the World
9:14
Speaker 1: Cup or at least playing pro soccer somewhere. So Nico transformed,
9:19
Speaker 1: transformed that journey into a grow a gravy soaked I
9:25
Speaker 1: guess pilgrimage is the way we had to meet and greet.
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Speaker 1: He catered it. There was poutine there. It was great.
9:32
Speaker 1: So I made my way around. I was in Vancouver
9:34
Speaker 1: for the weekend and I made my way around to
9:36
Speaker 1: all of the many spots the tabernacle of the poutine.
9:43
Speaker 1: There were three locations that are famous that are poutine.
9:46
Speaker 1: I know it started in Montreal, and get some It's
9:49
Speaker 1: not Vancouver, that's with you, that's out west. This is
9:51
Speaker 1: out in Montreal, Quebec, Okay, whatever. At some point I'll
9:55
Speaker 1: get to Montreal. I hope. I've not been to Montreal.
9:57
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go a couple of years ago.
9:58
Speaker 1: They canceled the TV show. I was gonna drive up
10:00
Speaker 1: to Montreal anyway, who cares? So we stopped one of
10:05
Speaker 1: the final stops on the Malar Poutine tour. If you remember,
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Speaker 1: the Temple of Bolt Consumption Costco. Now, this Costco is
10:13
Speaker 1: my favorite costco in Canada, and it's also the only
10:16
Speaker 1: costco I've been to in Canada. It is strategically positioned
10:19
Speaker 1: near the arena of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks, where fans
10:24
Speaker 1: could carbload before watching hockey that on most nights these
10:30
Speaker 1: days requires emotional insulation and it's a little tough on
10:35
Speaker 1: the tummy there. It gives you heartburn. Now, in the end,
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Speaker 1: both of these holidays reveal the same truth that a
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Speaker 1: lot of times these things are improvised. Poutine started as
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Speaker 1: a mistake in the kitchen. The barbershop quartet to kill time,
10:50
Speaker 1: they started it, and it has become something that both
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Speaker 1: these things that are part of modern society all these
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Speaker 1: years later. And so sometimes barber shop, you know, sometimes
11:01
Speaker 1: in a food court, and occasionally, if you're lucky, on
11:05
Speaker 1: the overnight radio waves, where these strange things that go
11:10
Speaker 1: bump in the night not only survive, they headline all right. Now, Meanwhile,
11:15
Speaker 1: this is the Saturday Podcast and the Life of malor.
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Speaker 1: This may shock you, This may shock you. I want
11:21
Speaker 1: you to brace yourself. Buckle up, buckeroo. I am not
11:25
Speaker 1: a landscaper. Let me start there, Let me start there.
11:28
Speaker 1: I'm not a landscaper. I am not a gardener. I've
11:31
Speaker 1: never been confused with a nurseryman, horticllege what was it, horticulturist. Yeah,
11:36
Speaker 1: that's the term, horticulturist. I've not been confused with that.
11:39
Speaker 1: I don't even care much for groundskeeper Willie on the Simpsons.
11:42
Speaker 1: I have generally avoided yardwork since I was a kid.
11:45
Speaker 1: My mom and dad gave me the lawnmower and told
11:49
Speaker 1: me to go out and mow the lawn. I have
11:52
Speaker 1: built an entire adult life around not doing yard work,
11:56
Speaker 1: despite having a yard. And yet there. I was not
12:02
Speaker 1: by choice, not by my decision. No one chooses that life.
12:06
Speaker 1: This life chose you. I was drafted. Not into the Army,
12:10
Speaker 1: not into the Marines or the Air Force no no, no,
12:12
Speaker 1: or the Navy, or the Coast Guard or the Space Force.
12:17
Speaker 1: I was. I was not drafted. I was drafted. I
12:20
Speaker 1: was not recruited. When I'm trying to I was not.
12:22
Speaker 1: I was not like, hey, you want to come here.
12:24
Speaker 1: We'll give you some nil money. No. I was brought
12:27
Speaker 1: in like, hey, we need a long snapper. This guy
12:29
Speaker 1: looks like it could be a long snapper. And there
12:32
Speaker 1: you go. And it began, as these domestic dramas often do,
12:36
Speaker 1: with a summons, not a request, not a request, not
12:40
Speaker 1: a suggestion, a court summons from the commissioner of the
12:45
Speaker 1: Malor mansion, my wife, who pointed with the authority of
12:49
Speaker 1: a Roman general towards the tree. That's right, the tree. Now,
12:54
Speaker 1: let me describe this tree, because it deserves its own
13:00
Speaker 1: own monologue. I'm not gonna do a whole monologue here.
13:02
Speaker 1: It really demands it. This is not just a tree.
13:05
Speaker 1: A tree could be anything. This thing has a personality.
13:09
Speaker 1: This is not landscaping. This is a presence. This thing
13:13
Speaker 1: is like the Wemby of trees, the Parisian Prodigy. It's insane.
13:20
Speaker 1: It sits right in front of the Malor Mansion, or
13:23
Speaker 1: as the locals call it, the chateau. Yes, chateau, I
13:28
Speaker 1: can use that word now, like a smug landlord collecting rent. Now,
13:34
Speaker 1: this tree is wide, it is tall, it is elegant.
13:38
Speaker 1: It is in the brochure of life. You know how
13:43
Speaker 1: you look at the perfect house with the tree out
13:46
Speaker 1: in front, very charming. You think like a post guard.
13:48
Speaker 1: You know better analogy would be like an emoji, you
13:50
Speaker 1: know that house emoji on your phone that's got the
13:53
Speaker 1: house since it's got the roof there. And then right
13:56
Speaker 1: in fronts of the tree, Yeah, how lovely look at it?
14:00
Speaker 1: They said, Wow, how perfect is that? What a delightful
14:02
Speaker 1: tree next to that nice home? What a wonderful home
14:06
Speaker 1: and tree? Lie lie and damn lie. Because what they
14:12
Speaker 1: don't tell you, and what Paul Harvey would whisper dramatically,
14:17
Speaker 1: you know what a tree is. In a minute, you're
14:20
Speaker 1: about to hear the rest of the story, but you
14:25
Speaker 1: know here is that this tree is a serial offender,
14:30
Speaker 1: a culprit on the loose, a repeat vandal, a leafy anarchist.
14:36
Speaker 1: If you will, you see, this tree doesn't just exist.
14:40
Speaker 1: It causes misery. And it reminds me. I had a
14:44
Speaker 1: buddy of mine years ago that dated a really really
14:50
Speaker 1: attractive woman like way out of his league, as Klay
14:53
Speaker 1: Travis would say, out kicked his coverage, and all of
14:57
Speaker 1: us friends were like, wow, that is I mean, she's
15:01
Speaker 1: really too hot for you, dude, And he eventually pointed out,
15:05
Speaker 1: while she was amazing, the outer beauty was amazing, let's
15:10
Speaker 1: just say the the trouble that she caused the inside
15:15
Speaker 1: stuff was not particularly great. But anyway, as far as
15:18
Speaker 1: this tree, it's not just any tree. This is a
15:21
Speaker 1: jack Aranda tree. Now, if you're not, as we said,
15:25
Speaker 1: a it was the word horticulturist. I believe that's the word. Yeah,
15:28
Speaker 1: if you're not into that kind of thing, so well,
15:30
Speaker 1: what the f is a jack Aranda tree? And let
15:33
Speaker 1: me say this right up front. It is gorgeous, That's
15:35
Speaker 1: what it is. It's the kind of a tree that
15:38
Speaker 1: makes neighbors think you have everything perfect in your life.
15:43
Speaker 1: Purple blue flowers, It's a purple rain wide canopy Instagram
15:50
Speaker 1: ready at all times, ready for that photo shoot. Again.
15:56
Speaker 1: The beauty, as we know, is a scam. It is
16:00
Speaker 1: because this tree is. It's criminal. It's a neighborhood criminal.
16:06
Speaker 1: From sap leaves, pods, twigs, branches, some kind of mystery
16:10
Speaker 1: debriath or what you might call it. I don't even
16:12
Speaker 1: know what that is. Things that hit your car with
16:15
Speaker 1: the subtlety of a meteor shower, you park your vehicle
16:19
Speaker 1: under it for ten minutes and you come back and
16:22
Speaker 1: it looks like it lost a bar fight with a
16:26
Speaker 1: syrup factory. Like a syrup factory went kaboom. Now we
16:30
Speaker 1: are on a first name basis at this point with
16:33
Speaker 1: the dudes that work at the car wash. The car
16:35
Speaker 1: wash people, they see us coming and they just nod.
16:39
Speaker 1: There's no words, there's just hey, well we know the deal.
16:43
Speaker 1: Come on in. So the call came and the message
16:48
Speaker 1: was two words, You're tall. That's how it began. You're tall, which,
16:54
Speaker 1: by the way, is not necessarily a compliment. Many people
16:57
Speaker 1: think being tall as a compliment, saying you're tall as
16:59
Speaker 1: a compliment. In this case, it was a job assignment.
17:02
Speaker 1: Your tall, Go cut the branches, and just like that,
17:07
Speaker 1: the flag goes up and I was called out of
17:09
Speaker 1: the bullpen. No warm up, no stretching, starting pitcher, got hurt.
17:14
Speaker 1: Go in there and pitch. Go in there and pitch.
17:16
Speaker 1: No contract negotiation, straight into the game, no bullpen cart,
17:20
Speaker 1: none of that. Now Phase number one, the cutting, the cutting.
17:26
Speaker 1: Now I approached this with confidence. This is known as
17:31
Speaker 1: false confidence, the kind of confidence you have right before
17:35
Speaker 1: something very unfortunate and humiliating happens. So I grabbed the trimmer. Now,
17:41
Speaker 1: the tree trimmer is a stick that you can extend
17:45
Speaker 1: up to the heavens, and so this thing is ridiculous.
17:50
Speaker 1: I think it goes up to like thirty feet if
17:51
Speaker 1: you stretch it all the way out. And it's got
17:53
Speaker 1: a string. And you likely have seen these, maybe you've
17:57
Speaker 1: used them, and you pull the string and it brings
17:59
Speaker 1: down the the razor that cuts the branches. So I
18:03
Speaker 1: don't know who created this. They're very very smart people,
18:07
Speaker 1: brilliant genius. So I sized up the tree. I said,
18:10
Speaker 1: I got this, and I heard in the background. I
18:14
Speaker 1: was like, I'm the only one here, what is it?
18:16
Speaker 1: And I heard this truckle out in the background. It
18:20
Speaker 1: turned out it was the tree laughing at me. And
18:23
Speaker 1: I didn't know trees could laugh. The tree was going hogwow.
18:27
Speaker 1: Tree was going hogwhow. So here's the thing about branches,
18:32
Speaker 1: and I learned this the hard way. They don't fall
18:37
Speaker 1: like they're supposed to fall. They don't fall like you
18:39
Speaker 1: think they are going to fall. They don't politely descend,
18:43
Speaker 1: they don't follow instructions. They attack, they wait, they calculate,
18:47
Speaker 1: They drop at angles. They defy physics and common decency,
18:50
Speaker 1: depending on which direction the wind is blowing. Every single
18:54
Speaker 1: cut a gamble. Every branch was a roulette wheel Russian roulette.
19:01
Speaker 1: Am I trimming? Or am I staring at a low
19:05
Speaker 1: budget remake of an evil canieval documentary? At one point,
19:10
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure the tree was having fun saying, let's
19:14
Speaker 1: try to hit mallor here, Let's try to hit Mallar
19:17
Speaker 1: right in the head, not metaphorically personally. So that was
19:21
Speaker 1: phase one. Phase two the breakdown because apparently it's not
19:25
Speaker 1: enough to cut the branches. No, no, you can't just
19:28
Speaker 1: cut the branches. What are you stupid? Now? That would
19:31
Speaker 1: be too easy. You must now process the branches like
19:34
Speaker 1: a lumberjack who missed orientation. So there I was as
19:38
Speaker 1: the lumberjack. Big branches became medium branches. Medium branches became
19:43
Speaker 1: small branches. Small branches became still somehow too big for
19:48
Speaker 1: the trash can, so then they had to be cut
19:50
Speaker 1: even more. And this is the moment where you realize,
19:55
Speaker 1: wait a minute here, that trash can is not your friend.
19:59
Speaker 1: And I thought I always had a good relationship with
20:01
Speaker 1: trash cans. I grew up a fan of Oscar the
20:03
Speaker 1: Grouch on Sesame Street. We were bros. We were bros.
20:06
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, we get along. It turns out, much
20:09
Speaker 1: like Oscar the Grouch, the trash can is a critic.
20:13
Speaker 1: It stands there, open mouth, and it was judging my
20:17
Speaker 1: life choices. And these little snide comments from the trash
20:22
Speaker 1: can leak. Oh you really thought that would fit? Are
20:24
Speaker 1: you stupid? Really? You call that cutting? You're a middle
20:29
Speaker 1: aged man, You're a loser. A kid could do that better.
20:33
Speaker 1: And so I'm out there in the heat and I'm sweating,
20:36
Speaker 1: I'm tired, I'm negotiating with the wood. I'm negotiating, you know,
20:41
Speaker 1: in my head, what do we do with this? So
20:43
Speaker 1: that was phase two. Then phase three the blower. Ah, yes, Benny,
20:50
Speaker 1: the blower. Now let me address something that is unfortunate.
20:55
Speaker 1: In a perfect world, I would have had a very
20:58
Speaker 1: masculine kind of gas power leaf blower that makes you
21:02
Speaker 1: feel like a man, like you're operating heavy machinery, the
21:06
Speaker 1: kind that ores, the kind that announces a man is
21:10
Speaker 1: working here with a lot of tust nosterone. Stay out
21:13
Speaker 1: of the way. However, I live in the People's Republic
21:16
Speaker 1: of California, where we are saving the world by not
21:20
Speaker 1: using gas power leaf blowers. They've been outlawed. Of course,
21:23
Speaker 1: that law is not enforced, because every gardener I ever
21:25
Speaker 1: see has a gas power leaf blower. I digress. So instead,
21:31
Speaker 1: because of the rules of the land, the blower has
21:36
Speaker 1: been neutered. So instead I have a electric blower, a
21:39
Speaker 1: very polite, petite blower, a blower that sounds like it's
21:43
Speaker 1: apologizing to the world while it works. And yet I
21:48
Speaker 1: loved it. I did become Benny the Blower because there
21:52
Speaker 1: is nothing in life that can match the satisfaction almost
22:00
Speaker 1: spiritual about taking chaos and just blowing it into a
22:05
Speaker 1: neat little pile leaves, to breeze those purple things from
22:09
Speaker 1: the tree, all of that and moving it at your command.
22:15
Speaker 1: Abra cadabra. It's power, it's controlled, it's a little therapeutic.
22:20
Speaker 1: And so a very short amount of time, very short
22:23
Speaker 1: amount of time, for a brief shining moment. As they
22:26
Speaker 1: say at the end of the basketball tournament, I was
22:30
Speaker 1: a superhero, suburban superhero with an extension cord. That's right. Yeah.
22:38
Speaker 1: And when it was done, when the yard was clean,
22:40
Speaker 1: when the branches were gone, when the blower had sung
22:45
Speaker 1: its gentle song, I stood there. I was very proud,
22:49
Speaker 1: a little tired, slightly confused by what I'd been doing,
22:53
Speaker 1: and the kicker on this, if you owe the punchline,
22:57
Speaker 1: the tree is still there, watching me, waiting, regenerating, stockpiling,
23:04
Speaker 1: because this is life with a jackarandit tree, a Jacaranda tree, beautiful, majestic, completely,
23:10
Speaker 1: completely untrustworthy, blooms, dazzles, everyone's impressed by it, drops the
23:14
Speaker 1: purple flowers like it's a print song, falling down like confetti.
23:19
Speaker 1: And then when you let your guard down, it unleashes
23:24
Speaker 1: the sap, the nonsense, and so in many ways, it's
23:29
Speaker 1: a metaphor. It's a double edged sword, the floral con artist,
23:33
Speaker 1: the botanical front of me, if you will, and yes,
23:35
Speaker 1: the job was done. For that moment, the yard was
23:39
Speaker 1: cleaned up, looked majestic. The superhero with the extension cord,
23:43
Speaker 1: Benny Blower had delivered. Deep down, though we all know
23:48
Speaker 1: the truth, this is not victory. I'm not declaring victory.
23:52
Speaker 1: This is more of a ceasefire because that tree, that beautiful, charming,
23:57
Speaker 1: deceitful tree, is already planning it's next attack, and it'll
24:02
Speaker 1: be just days away, and then we'll be back to
24:05
Speaker 1: square one. It's like when you were you were a
24:09
Speaker 1: kid and you'd you'd, I forget the name of it.
24:11
Speaker 1: There's that thing you'd you'd you'd write on it and
24:14
Speaker 1: then you'd shake it and it would vanish, that kind
24:17
Speaker 1: of you know what I'm talking about? Anyway, A right
24:20
Speaker 1: last part of this rant on the Fifth Hour podcast
24:25
Speaker 1: on this Saturday special. So I have now reached the
24:28
Speaker 1: stage of my life where the most intense battle inside
24:33
Speaker 1: the household is between me and my dog, Moxie, my
24:38
Speaker 1: bulldog a Komodo dragon in the dog form. And the
24:45
Speaker 1: competition here was between Moxie with the Komodo dragon tongue
24:50
Speaker 1: and a piece of velcro. So let me explain here
24:55
Speaker 1: all right now, this is not something I thought I
24:56
Speaker 1: would ever say when I was a kid into a microphone,
24:59
Speaker 1: that I have competition in my house between a bulldog
25:02
Speaker 1: and a piece of velcrow. Welcome to the podcast Life
25:07
Speaker 1: the Life of Maler, where we document the daily grind,
25:12
Speaker 1: the day to day. So Moxie, my English bulldog, has
25:16
Speaker 1: the leisurely lifestyle. How would you describe Moxie's lifestyle? She's
25:20
Speaker 1: got the life most people spend decades trying to achieve.
25:23
Speaker 1: No job, no bills, no responsibilities, beyond eating, sleeping, and farting,
25:29
Speaker 1: occasionally judging me while I watch a meaningless midweek Twins
25:36
Speaker 1: game against the Royals. And so she is, in many
25:42
Speaker 1: ways live in the dream. If the dream also included
25:46
Speaker 1: chronic pawlicking, say what, who goofed? I've got to know. Now,
25:53
Speaker 1: keep in mind, I am not just talking about casual,
25:57
Speaker 1: absent minded licking. I'm talking about full blown Komodo dragon
26:02
Speaker 1: level fork tongue the you know the you know how
26:06
Speaker 1: Komodo dragon uses its forked tongue to detect chemical signals
26:12
Speaker 1: track prey. Essentially, it's the GPS for the Komodo dragon.
26:19
Speaker 1: And that is Moxie. That's Moxie, except instead of hunting,
26:26
Speaker 1: she's investigating her own feet like their buried treasure that
26:31
Speaker 1: you got it. It's kind of like a Tutsi roll
26:33
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta you gotta, you know, go through it,
26:36
Speaker 1: or a tutsi pop, I should say, you lick it
26:38
Speaker 1: and then get a surprise there. At first, you think,
26:41
Speaker 1: all right, dogs do this, and it's not that big
26:44
Speaker 1: a deal. It's said to be grooming. It's soothing for
26:48
Speaker 1: the dog. It's like built in having a stress ball. However,
26:52
Speaker 1: then it becomes a hobby, then a passion project, then
26:58
Speaker 1: something closer to a second care. If she could invoice
27:02
Speaker 1: us for hours spent licking her pause, we'd be in
27:08
Speaker 1: financial trouble, right, I mean if she charges, oh my god,
27:12
Speaker 1: we'd be cooked. We'd have to sell the house, the
27:14
Speaker 1: whole thing. The problem is, unlike most hobbies, this one
27:18
Speaker 1: comes with consequences, namely blisters. Now not just blisters, blisters
27:24
Speaker 1: are one thing. These things it's like a second and
27:27
Speaker 1: third head are growing on her pause. And that is
27:31
Speaker 1: the point of demarcation. That is the come to Jesus
27:35
Speaker 1: moment when my wife, the reasonable adult in the operation,
27:41
Speaker 1: stepped in and said, we're going to fix this. So
27:44
Speaker 1: we went to the veterinarian and they said, oh, yeah,
27:48
Speaker 1: we can fix that, no problem. She's clearly allergic to something.
27:51
Speaker 1: So what we'll do is we'll put her on some medication.
27:54
Speaker 1: It'll cost one hundred and ten dollars a month, and
27:56
Speaker 1: we'll fix the problem. So I thought, well, I I
28:00
Speaker 1: don't think that seems like a good idea. That's a
28:02
Speaker 1: lot of money. We love Moxie, but that's a lot
28:03
Speaker 1: of money. There's got to be another solution. So I
28:06
Speaker 1: was like, well, let's just monitor the situation further, which
28:10
Speaker 1: is my go to strategy for every possible thing, every
28:15
Speaker 1: existential crisis. I'm like, you know, just kind of let's
28:18
Speaker 1: wait on that monitor. Well, the monitoring did not work.
28:22
Speaker 1: The problem continued and got worse. So the wife came
28:25
Speaker 1: up with a pretty good idea, a pretty good idea.
28:28
Speaker 1: He said, you know what, let's let's go on the
28:30
Speaker 1: old the Amazon. Let's go on the Amazon. And it
28:34
Speaker 1: was it Timu, and we'll you know, well, we'll solve
28:38
Speaker 1: the problem. And I said, no, no, no, we don't
28:40
Speaker 1: need to do that. We don't need we don't anything
28:42
Speaker 1: special here, Come on, what's wrong with you? So I said,
28:46
Speaker 1: we'll just put socks on. We don't need special socks,
28:48
Speaker 1: just regular, innocent, defenseless socks. So we put them on
28:52
Speaker 1: Moxie and sat there, took some photos, admired the moment,
28:56
Speaker 1: like we just solved the complex equation. And a few
29:00
Speaker 1: minutes later the socks were He's nowhere to be seen.
29:03
Speaker 1: They vanished, poof gone, presto, Where do they go? I
29:07
Speaker 1: don't know where they went? Did she eat them? They vanished?
29:10
Speaker 1: They vanished like they had tunneled their way out, which
29:13
Speaker 1: is when it hit me that Moxie is basically living
29:18
Speaker 1: the Shawshank redemption. She's got nothing but time. Endless uninterrupted
29:26
Speaker 1: time is what my friend Moxie has. And like Andy
29:31
Speaker 1: two friend chipping away at the prison wall with the
29:35
Speaker 1: tiny rock hammer, Moxie will sit there hour after hour,
29:41
Speaker 1: quietly working at whatever obstacle is in front of her,
29:47
Speaker 1: whether it's a sock, a strap, or the concept of
29:52
Speaker 1: personal boundaries, until eventually she will break three She'll break free,
29:57
Speaker 1: and then she'll say, like the kool aid man, oh yeah,
30:00
Speaker 1: And you don't beat that kind of patience with just
30:04
Speaker 1: an ordinary sock. You don't. So things did escalate. We
30:07
Speaker 1: eventually did go online. The wife did, because again Amazon
30:10
Speaker 1: and Timu are where all great decisions are made. So
30:13
Speaker 1: I lost this battle, and the wife found some doggie socks.
30:18
Speaker 1: I didn't even know this was a thing, and they're
30:20
Speaker 1: not cheap. We bought some doggy socks with velcrow. Why
30:24
Speaker 1: not not just socks. These are commitment devices. It's like
30:28
Speaker 1: a chastity belt for dogs. And these are socks that
30:32
Speaker 1: say we respect your effort. However, we're raising the degree
30:36
Speaker 1: of difficulty. So now Moxie walks around like she's been
30:40
Speaker 1: placed under very polite house arrest, very polite house arrest.
30:45
Speaker 1: She tests the strap, she twists them, she flops dramatically,
30:49
Speaker 1: as if she's auditioning for a role in a daytime
30:52
Speaker 1: soap opera called As the Bulldog Turns. However, surprise, spoiler alert,
31:00
Speaker 1: the velcral holds. It's relentless, it's the immovable object. The
31:05
Speaker 1: Komodo dragon tongue has been unable to crack the code
31:09
Speaker 1: a very determined Moxie. And yet there we are. So
31:13
Speaker 1: for now we've saved one hundred and ten dollars a month.
31:17
Speaker 1: Moxie cannot lick her pause. Therefore, the pause will heal
31:23
Speaker 1: as the body takes over. And don't worry, she still
31:26
Speaker 1: sleeps like she's preparing for a marathon of naps. She
31:30
Speaker 1: still claims my legs are her personal recliner. And Moxie
31:34
Speaker 1: still watches me watch those games with no cares at all,
31:42
Speaker 1: And every now and then she'll look down at her
31:45
Speaker 1: sock covered pause and then back up at me like,
31:50
Speaker 1: you know, this is not really necessary, You really shouldn't
31:54
Speaker 1: be doing this, and she's not wrong. However, here's the
31:58
Speaker 1: thing she has not given up because again the Shawshank
32:03
Speaker 1: movie lesson that taught us any If it tall us anything,
32:07
Speaker 1: it's that hope is a dangerous thing, especially when paired
32:09
Speaker 1: with unlimited free time and a stubborn streak. So somewhere
32:14
Speaker 1: right now, Moxie, she's not in here while I'm doing
32:17
Speaker 1: the podcast, but somewhere Moxie is working on her next move,
32:20
Speaker 1: a new angle. Maybe she'll deputize the rabbits, what's up,
32:26
Speaker 1: Rabbit and have them help her out long term strategy,
32:31
Speaker 1: long term strategy, or just waiting us out, and we'll
32:34
Speaker 1: get tired of seeing her in those doggy socks. And honestly,
32:38
Speaker 1: I wouldn't bet against her. It's Velco is very strong.
32:42
Speaker 1: Over time, Velcrow becomes less strong. So stay tuned. All right,
32:48
Speaker 1: On that note, we'll get out of here. Have a
32:49
Speaker 1: great Saturday, and don't forget. We got the mail Bag
32:52
Speaker 1: podcast on Sunday. Fun fun, fun fun, Have a wonderful
32:58
Speaker 1: arrest of your day, we think. Thank you for supporting
33:00
Speaker 1: the podcast. Don't forget. Listen to that Friday podcast. All
33:03
Speaker 1: the details on the Ohio meet and greet. Well it's
33:05
Speaker 1: really in Kentucky. Just go with it, Okay, just go
33:08
Speaker 1: with it all right, Take care, Aloha, bye bye,