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The Fifth Hour: Maller War With Montezuma · The Ben Maller Show

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  Speaker 1: Kaboom if you thought four hours a day 1200 minutes
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  Speaker 1: a week was enough think again he's the last remnants
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  Speaker 1: of the old republic a sole bastion of fairness he
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  Speaker 1: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
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  Speaker 1: rich pill poppers in the penthouse wow the clearinghouse of
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  Speaker 1: hot takes break free for something special the fifth hour
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  Speaker 1: with ben maller starts right.
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  Speaker 2: Now in the air everywhere the 5th hour we thank
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  Speaker 2: you for downloading the podcast we thank you for actually
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  Speaker 2: listening to the 5th hour podcast on this Saturday it's
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  Speaker 2: the 24th day of October the week before.
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  Speaker 3: Halloween the 297th day of the year there are 68
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  Speaker 3: days left that's it 68 days left the 43rd week
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  Speaker 3: of the year and by request We have more Malheur Misadventures,
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  Speaker 3: South of the Border, the fifth hour, three more bonus
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  Speaker 3: chapters of the Mexico City Travelog by request. Now, I
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  Speaker 3: kept ranting and raving. I was very tired recording the
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  Speaker 3: Friday podcast, as I normally am doing this pod. And
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  Speaker 3: I was stumbling and mumbling. I think we did 50-something
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  Speaker 3: minutes solid today. had nine different chapters in that opening
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  Speaker 3: episode of the Mexico city travel log. We have three
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  Speaker 3: chapters that we did not get to. These are the
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  Speaker 3: bonus chapters, chapter number one, Benny on a boat, the
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  Speaker 3: Mexican love canal. Now there are certain things that you
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  Speaker 3: expect when you visit Mexico city, you expect the tacos traffic, tequila,
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  Speaker 3: somebody wearing a mask, at a wrestling event, and then
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  Speaker 3: somebody else trying to sell you refrigerator magnets outside of
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  Speaker 3: the wrestling event. Now, for me, what I did not
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  Speaker 3: expect is Venice. And I'm not talking about Venice Beach,
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  Speaker 3: which is in L.A., where a guy with no shirt
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  Speaker 3: on roller skates with a pet snake wants $ 5 for
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  Speaker 3: a photograph. I'm talking about Venice, Italy. Gondolas, canals, romance.
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  Speaker 3: Except this version has mariachi bands, floating taco stands, and
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  Speaker 3: enough booze to sterilize a hospital the size of Manhattan.
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  Speaker 3: Any surgical instrument. Welcome to a town, I believe it's
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  Speaker 3: pronounced Sochi Milchak. I probably butchered that. Anyway, I don't
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  Speaker 3: know what the hell the name of it is. I
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  Speaker 3: had never heard of this place. Not once. And I've
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  Speaker 3: been doing the radio thing for a long time. Many,
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  Speaker 3: many years. I've interviewed professional athletes. I've covered championship games.
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  Speaker 3: I've spent endless hours discussing the absurdities of the modern
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  Speaker 3: society that we live in. I love looking at goofy
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  Speaker 3: stories about faraway places. And nobody ever mentioned... There's a
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  Speaker 3: place in Mexico where they have bumper boats. Like, what
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  Speaker 3: are you talking about? Well, my friend, my friend, let
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  Speaker 3: me tell you, this is real. Mexican bumper boats. So
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  Speaker 3: my wife and her pals, Jen and Ashley, had this
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  Speaker 3: on the itinerary. They had done a lot of opposition
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  Speaker 3: research on Mexico City, and they said, we got to
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  Speaker 3: do this. And when you're traveling with not one but
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  Speaker 3: three women, you have collectively decided, you know, they've decided
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  Speaker 3: collectively that you're going to do something. You're going to
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  Speaker 3: do it. You're absolutely going to do it. There's no filibuster.
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  Speaker 3: There's no procedure to avoid that. The vote was three
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  Speaker 3: to one. That's it. We're there. So I was informed
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  Speaker 3: we would be taking a boat ride. That's all they said. Well,
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  Speaker 3: we're going to go down. There's some canals. We're going
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  Speaker 3: to do the boat ride.
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  Speaker 1: I don't.
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  Speaker 3: I mentioned in a previous episode of The Fifth Hour
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  Speaker 3: that I did not do any real research. I watched
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  Speaker 3: like one or two vloggers, travel vloggers on YouTube. But
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  Speaker 3: it's not like I was going online trying to find
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  Speaker 3: things to do in Mexico City. I was just trying
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  Speaker 3: to get through the day doing the radio show, trying
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  Speaker 3: to keep my eyeballs above water. And that's it. So
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  Speaker 3: the wife's like, yeah, we're going on a boat ride. Whatever. Wonderful.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm thinking a pleasant afternoon, a gentle breeze, maybe
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  Speaker 3: a nice sandwich. No, these boats are next level. All right,
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  Speaker 3: next level. They're brightly colored wooden vessels with names painted
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  Speaker 3: across these enormous decorative arches. They look like somebody took
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  Speaker 3: a canal ride, dipped it in rainbow, and forgot to
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  Speaker 3: install the engine. There is no motor on these Mexican gondolas,
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  Speaker 3: we'll call them, There's no steering wheel. There's no GPS.
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  Speaker 3: There's some dude who's probably making like five pesos a
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  Speaker 3: day standing on the back with a giant wooden pole.
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  Speaker 3: And that is the system that gets the boat moving.
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  Speaker 3: That is the human outboard motor. And the canals themselves,
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  Speaker 3: I was reading, they're ancient. One of the people that
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  Speaker 3: was involved in this, they said they're older than the
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  Speaker 3: United States people. the remnants of the lake system that
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  Speaker 3: existed before the Spanish conquistadors. The conquistadors showed up back
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  Speaker 3: in the 1500s, and they started rearranging stuff. They're like,
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  Speaker 3: let me redecorate. And that area is part of the
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  Speaker 3: UNESCO World Heritage Site deal. It's been there since 1987,
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  Speaker 3: which is wonderful, but nobody told the UNESCO folks about
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  Speaker 3: the traffic. And while there's a lot of traffic around
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  Speaker 3: Mexico City, it's the most polluted traffic city in terms
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  Speaker 3: of cars in the world the boats there were boats
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  Speaker 3: everywhere hundreds of people There was all kinds of music here, there,
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  Speaker 3: and everywhere, every direction. Boats bumping into boats, boats scrapping
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  Speaker 3: against other boats, boatmen trying to squeeze through openings that
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  Speaker 3: clearly were designed not for boats. And no lawsuits, no
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  Speaker 3: billboard lawyers saying, you bumped my boat, you've got to
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  Speaker 3: pay me money. No, it was a trip. on the freeway,
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  Speaker 3: if you will, with a boat, but it was tequila,
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  Speaker 3: and nobody was wearing a seatbelt. One boat would move forward,
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  Speaker 3: another would drift sideways, a third would come charging through
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  Speaker 3: like it had diplomatic immunity. It was insane. And our
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  Speaker 3: boatman was working that pole. He was working the pole.
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  Speaker 3: Not like that. It's like he's trying to qualify for
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  Speaker 3: the Olympics. Now, meanwhile... I was the last one on
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  Speaker 3: the boat. I'm sitting at the very end. They're doing
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  Speaker 3: all kinds of drinking games. They give you a little
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  Speaker 3: shot glass, the whole thing. And I was laughing and
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  Speaker 3: everyone's drinking. I'm observing. I wasn't really drinking. I drink occasionally.
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  Speaker 3: I drink a couple times a year. I'm not much
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  Speaker 3: of a booze guy. I don't really understand the appeal
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  Speaker 3: of paying a lot of money to temporarily lose control
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  Speaker 3: of your motor skills. That's not really my thing. I
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  Speaker 3: can accomplish that naturally by getting out of bed too
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  Speaker 3: fast or doing a rant about the Tampa Bay Rays
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  Speaker 3: on the podcast that I do during the week, the
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  Speaker 3: radio show. But the people with us were having a
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  Speaker 3: grand old time. There were people from all over, Dallas, Vegas, London, Boston,
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  Speaker 3: other people from L.A., an international summit. of people with
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  Speaker 3: absolutely nowhere important to be. And then you have the vendors.
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  Speaker 3: So not only are we on these Mexican version of
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  Speaker 3: gondolas and bumping into each other, imagine sitting in your
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  Speaker 3: living room and suddenly somebody pulls up alongside your couch
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  Speaker 3: selling you a quesadilla. There were vendor boats, little boats
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  Speaker 3: selling carrying people making tacos, roasted corn, drinks, souvenirs, a
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  Speaker 3: woman babushka. I don't know what the Mexican version of
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  Speaker 3: babushka is. We'll just call her a Mexican babushka. And
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  Speaker 3: her husband floating alongside trying to sell food desperately, like
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  Speaker 3: they're running a restaurant without a building. I'm sure that
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  Speaker 3: that's violating every possible health code, except we're in Mexico,
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  Speaker 3: so it's violating none of them. So you just paddle up,
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  Speaker 3: you place your order, There were mariachi bands, fully decked
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  Speaker 3: out dudes, mariachi bands that would approach and offer you perform.
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  Speaker 3: They would perform for a fee, of course, a floating
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  Speaker 3: jukebox with mustaches. There were celebrations going on. People were
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  Speaker 3: celebrating birthday parties, family gatherings, weddings. I don't think there
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  Speaker 3: were any bar mitzvahs. You name it. People singing, having
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  Speaker 3: a grand old time, people dancing. It was complete organized chaos.
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  Speaker 3: It was like having an ant colony. Everyone's going everywhere. Now, eventually,
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  Speaker 3: we stopped at a little island. Yes, the canals had
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  Speaker 3: little islands. We got off the boat. And had some taquitos,
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  Speaker 3: I believe. Well, they were rolled tacos, but we call
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  Speaker 3: them in America taquito. And then we turned around and
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  Speaker 3: we headed back. There was no shipwreck, no international incident.
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  Speaker 3: No police were called, no federales to fill out. the
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  Speaker 3: police report. There was no need to contact the Mexican
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  Speaker 3: Coast Guard. I got to tell you, I loved it.
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  Speaker 3: For a man who normally prefers sitting in his kitchen
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  Speaker 3: drinking ice water from a blue cup, this was quite
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  Speaker 3: the adventure. Call me Benny on a boat. Benny on
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  Speaker 3: a boat. And if you ever do visit Mexico City,
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  Speaker 3: I would recommend putting this on your itinerary. Just remember,
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  Speaker 3: the boats, they don't have brakes. And the party does
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  Speaker 3: not have a brake. It's pretty rambunctious. Pretty rambunctious. Now,
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  Speaker 3: chapter two of the bonus hidden chapters of the Mallard Travelogue,
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  Speaker 3: the Avenue of the Dead. As we met the ancient world. Now,
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  Speaker 3: this is something I did want to do. I had
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  Speaker 3: heard about this for a long time in Mexico. I
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  Speaker 3: was like, you're in Mexico. You got to do this. Now,
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  Speaker 3: I'm not a archaeology expert. I do enjoy history. I do.
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  Speaker 3: I appreciate learning about ancient civilizations. I do understand that
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  Speaker 3: people who lived thousands of years ago accomplished some things
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  Speaker 3: that were remarkable. We don't know a lot about them.
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  Speaker 3: And they've left behind ruins that people have gone through
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  Speaker 3: and tried to put the jigsaw puzzle pieces together. But
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  Speaker 3: my preferred method of experiencing history involves a really comfortable
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  Speaker 3: chair or sofa, some nice air conditioning, and a documentary
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  Speaker 3: narrated by a British dude. Because British gentlemen, you just
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  Speaker 3: sound smarter if you have the British accent. You just do.
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  Speaker 3: My idea of archaeology is not walking around in the
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  Speaker 3: sun at the elevation of 7,000 feet above sea level. However,
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  Speaker 3: there we were. One of our Mexican adventures involved traveling
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  Speaker 3: roughly 30 miles northeast of Mexico City. We got picked up.
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  Speaker 3: We were part of a group. Some folks from New
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  Speaker 3: York City were in our travel group. To see the pyramids.
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  Speaker 3: We're off to see the pyramids. And there we were.
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  Speaker 3: And let me tell you something. These are not your
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  Speaker 3: neighborhood pyramids. If you have a pyramid, we have one.
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  Speaker 3: We used to have one in Long Beach in L.A.
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  Speaker 3: They called it the pyramid where Long Beach State would play.
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  Speaker 3: I don't even know if it's still there. But these
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  Speaker 3: are serious pyramids, right? The kind that make you wonder
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  Speaker 3: how people that didn't have bulldozers, there were no bulldozers,
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  Speaker 3: They didn't have cranes. They couldn't go down to Home
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  Speaker 3: Depot or Lowe's to get some tools. And yet they
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  Speaker 3: managed to build something that is massive. You think, well,
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  Speaker 3: maybe you could build a garden shed. No, the star
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  Speaker 3: attraction is this thing called the Pyramid of the Sun.
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  Speaker 3: It's about 216 feet tall, 740 feet across at its base.
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  Speaker 3: One of the largest pyramids in the world by volume.
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  Speaker 3: It's enormous. They said it was nearly as tall as
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  Speaker 3: a 20-story building. It looked taller than that. And the
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  Speaker 3: people who constructed this monster, again, they didn't have forklifts.
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  Speaker 3: They didn't have a hydraulic lift. They didn't have a
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  Speaker 3: guy named Gary operating a caterpillar. No, they had hard rocks,
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  Speaker 3: human labor. apparently some slave labor, and mathematics, and not malarmath,
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  Speaker 3: and apparently a tremendous amount of patience. The truly fascinating
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  Speaker 3: part is that this civilization existed long before the Aztecs
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  Speaker 3: became the dominant power in central Mexico. At its peak
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  Speaker 3: around the 5th century, they say that there were more
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  Speaker 3: than 100,000 people that were living there. One of the
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  Speaker 3: largest cities on the planet at the time... And you
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  Speaker 3: think about that, while much of the world was living
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  Speaker 3: in comparably small settlements, these people had enormous urban centers,
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  Speaker 3: organized neighborhoods. They had apartment compounds. What the F? Ancient
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  Speaker 3: apartment living. I wonder what the HOA was on those
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  Speaker 3: ancient apartments. Imagine the complaints. Somebody upstairs dragging furniture around
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  Speaker 3: at midnight. What are you doing? The neighbor's ceremonial drums
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  Speaker 3: going until 3 in the morning, and nobody from management
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  Speaker 3: returning your messages. Big problem, because there were no phones.
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  Speaker 3: The city had thousands of residential compounds, a massive ceremonial
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  Speaker 3: avenue that has become known as the Avenue of the Dead. Now,
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  Speaker 3: that's a name. The Avenue of the Dead. Not Main Street, USA.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Not Broadway. The Avenue of the Dead, which sounds like
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  Speaker 3: a low-budget horror movie, back when they used to make
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: low-budget horror movies. And the kind of thing that would
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: play late at night while you're trying to sleep and
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: you want to watch a movie and it's Halloween time. Now,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: the Aztecs who encountered this abandoned city, imagine what that
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  Speaker 3: must have been like. They came across this abandoned city
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  Speaker 3: centuries later. And they apparently believed the structures lining the
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  Speaker 3: avenue were tombs. And how about that? And they were
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  Speaker 3: wrong about much of that interpretation. The name, though, stuck.
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  Speaker 3: That's the way it works, right? When the legend becomes
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: the fact, you go with the legend, the man that
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: shot Liberty Valance. And our guide told us about the
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: darker side, the human sacrifice side. that archaeologists have discovered
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: sacrificial burials associated with the Pyramid of the Moon and
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: other ceremonial structures that were on that particular avenue of
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  Speaker 3: the dead. And that's one way to make sure your
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: religious ceremonies have good attendance. You better show up or
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: it's all over. Nobody wants to be the guy who
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: gets selected for the special presentation. Now, there are also
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: mysterious underground tunnels and chambers... They said beneath the Pyramid
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  Speaker 3: of the Sun, there's a passage leading towards a cave-like chamber.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Beneath the temple, they have the— it' s the Temple of the
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Feathered Serpent. That's a pretty good name, too. That's a
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: good name. The Temple of the Feathered Serpent. And they
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: recovered thousands, tens of thousands of objects, ornaments. They had mirrors,
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: all these artifacts. Pretty crazy. It's an ancient treasure hunt.
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  Speaker 3: And I happened to visit. I'm walking around this ancient town.
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  Speaker 3: This is crazy. Now, instead of finding a $ 20 bill
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  Speaker 3: and an old jacket, you're finding ceremonial objects buried for centuries. Now,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the buildings today look mostly gray and stone-colored. They're weathered
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: from being in the weather. However, researchers believe many were
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: once covered in these colorful paints, different colors from the
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: box of crayons. They didn't have crayons back then. So
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: imagine Las Vegas without the slot machines... These people, whoever
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  Speaker 3: they were, they understood a lot of really crazy things
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: like astronomy, the buildings in the city. They reflect the
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: sky and the solar cycles. And so there you go.
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  Speaker 3: There are days I wake up and I don't know
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  Speaker 3: which direction the sun's going to set and all that.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: I'm just trying to get through the day. And here's
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  Speaker 3: the great mystery. Here's the great mystery about all this.
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  Speaker 3: So we don't know what the people originally called their city.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: We don't fully understand why the thing declined and this
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: tremendous metropolis of the day eventually was abandoned. They think
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: there might have been some mass illness, but even that
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: they would have left bones would have been left behind
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: some evidence of that. So they built this really cool
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  Speaker 3: city and then history lost the instruction manual. And our
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: tourist experience also included a breakfast in a cave in
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Mexico and learning about how they make Mexican chocolate. We
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: also stopped by a gift shop where they carve stone,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: these crazy stone statues and all that. It was the
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: complete gringo tourist package. History, chocolates, and souvenirs. Three things
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  Speaker 3: that every civilization needs. And I gotta tell you, I
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: came away impressed. I was really, truly impressed because after
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: seeing what these people accomplished without modern gadgets and gizmos
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: and machinery, I returned to the Airbnb we were staying
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: at And I'm like, all right, I got to try
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: to figure this thing out in the bathroom, the whole
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: shower control thing. So human progress is a very complicated thing.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: It just is. Now on to chapter three of the bonus,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: bonus chapters on the Malheur travelogue, the Blue Cup Blues,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: and it's the Malheur War with Montezuma. So if you
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: listen to this podcast regularly, you know that I have
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: a relationship with agua, water. Not a casual relationship. This
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: is a committed relationship. I used to drink tons of Dr. Pepper, Chai, Coke,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: you name it, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, the whole thing. And I
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: loved it. And at one point, I stopped and I
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: went to water. And at the Malheur Mansion, there's a
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  Speaker 3: blue cup. If you ever come on over, if you've
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: been stalking me through the windows, you'll see it. I
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: would also recommend that you stop stalking me. But you'll
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  Speaker 3: notice this blue cup. I've got the blue straw. It's
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: worn down. I need to get a new blue cup.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: I haven't done that yet. I haven't wanted to give
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: up my blue cup. But it's always there. It's filled
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: with ice water. And I drink water constantly, morning, afternoon, night.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: It's my beverage of choice. Now, some people need coffee.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: A lot of you need coffee. My wife, her friends
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: that were on the trip, Ashley and Jen, they needed coffee.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Some people need energy drinks. Some people need a cocktail
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: to survive. You got to have a cocktail to survive.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I do do some caffeine supplements. However, I need my
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: blue cup. That's the drink I need. And then I
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: went to Mexico City where I was informed that the
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  Speaker 3: water could potentially destroy my vacation.
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  Speaker 1: Wonderful.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm visiting one of the great cities in the
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  Speaker 3: world in terms of history and all that, and suddenly
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I'm treating the bathroom sink like it contains nuclear waste. Now,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: you might have been to Mexico. Maybe you've been there
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  Speaker 3: many times, and you're like, I know, Maller. I know
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  Speaker 3: what you're talking about. Let me just tell my story, okay?
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  Speaker 3: So the issue isn't that Americans have delicate digestive systems.
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  Speaker 3: Some of us do. It's the untreated or inadequately treated
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  Speaker 3: water that contains all kinds of exotic Mexican bacteria, viruses,
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  Speaker 3: and parasites. And your intestines may not appreciate the introduction.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: This is where we encounter one of the great phrases
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: in travel history. It's a phrase when I was a
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  Speaker 3: kid I thought was a ride, just a ride at
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Knott's Berry Farm, an amusement park in Southern California. The phrase,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Montezuma's Revenge. Montezuma's Revenge, which is actually a thing. It's
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: not made up. It's not fake. It was named after
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: an Aztec emperor whose empire was conquered by the Spanish forces.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: And they're their allies in the 1500s. So centuries later,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: and this guy, this dude, is still associated with tourists
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: making emergency trips to the porcelain throne. Now that... is
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: a legacy. That is a legacy. Some emperors get statues,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: some get museums. This guy gets diarrhea. Montezuma's revenge. And
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: I wanted absolutely no part of Montezuma's revenge, as you
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: might imagine. Mexico City's water system has, to be kind, challenges.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Aging pipes, intermittent service in some neighborhoods, rooftop storage tanks
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: that require proper maintenance. Water... can leave a treatment facility
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: perfectly fine and encounter problems on its journey to your faucet.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like an NFL team having a really
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: good training camp and exhibition season, then going out and
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: going 3-14. Everything looked promising at the beginning. Then the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: plumbing fell apart. And because Mexico City sits at roughly
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: 7,350 feet above sea level, that's some serious altitude. Even
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: boiling water. Requires extra attention. The CDC recommends that in
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: order to properly boil water at that altitude above 6,500 feet,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: you have to do it for three minutes. Three minutes
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: at home. I don't even want to wait three minutes
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: for the microwave. Now I'm supposed to conduct a chemistry
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: experiment before brushing my teeth? No. Which brings us to
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: the ice cubes. Ice cubes were my hidden enemy. I
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: love ice. I do. I love ice. Ice is practically
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: a member of my family. My blue cup without ice
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: is like football without referees. Actually, that does sound not bad.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: No 19 penalties like we had in that NFL game
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: back on Thursday when the Team from Chicago beat the
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: team from New England. But anyway, freezing contaminated water, from
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: what I read online, does not kill the microorganisms that
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: can make you have Montezuma's wrench. So you're sitting at
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: a taco restaurant. Somebody hands you a cola, a soda pop,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: and they've got ice. It looks refreshing. It looks harmless.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And it could be the opening act of your trip
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: on the Vomit Comet. No thank you. No thing. So
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: we avoided the ice unless we knew it came from
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: purified water. Then came brushing the teeth. Our accommodations had
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: a water filter. Very nice. Very reassuring. Except I didn't
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: trust it. Now, I don't know who installed this thing.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know when the filter was changed. For all
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: I know, the filter was installed when the Aztecs were
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: still running the neighborhood. And it was their doing. So
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I'm brushing my teeth like I'm handling plutonium. tiny amounts
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: of water, careful rinsing, maximum concentration. I've had easier experiences
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: getting through airport security. And then there was the shower. Oh,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: the shower. Now, normally, a shower is a place of relaxation,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: warm water, soap, perhaps a little singing. Not in Mexico City. No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: I'm standing there with my lips pressed together, like I've
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: been subpoenaed to testify before Congress. Mouth is shut, eyes forward,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: do not swallow. I look like a man trying to
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: defuse a bomb while washing my armpits. And showering with
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: municipal water is generally considered low risk, they say, if
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: you don't swallow the water. And accidentally even getting a
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: few drops in your mouth you're likely going to get
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: very sick. So I'm trying to tell that to my brain.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I was like, well, it's relatively safe. Just keep your
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: mouth closed. My brain had already booked a room at
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: the Montezuma Memorial Gastrointestinal Disaster Center at the local hospital
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: in Mexico City. Every droplet was suspicious. Every faucet was
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: a potential crime scene. Now, meanwhile, I'm eating tacos. I'm
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: visiting pyramids. I'm riding party boats, wandering around Mexico City
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: with my wife and her friends. Everything else seems perfectly normal.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: And I'm conducting a personal water security operation. And remember,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: we had already experienced the legendary wrestling arena bathroom incident,
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: which I'm I'm going to be haunted by for some time.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: A seven-story walk-up at an old wrestling arena. No elevator,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: no escalator. And at that critical moment, no toilet paper.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: And I had to make the walk a shame, locate
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: the necessary supplies, and return to finish the paperwork. And
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: then came the cultural revelation that used toilet paper often
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: goes into a trash can rather than the toilet... Because
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: the plumbing restrictions are there. And, yeah, I'm sorry. That's
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: going to take some adjustment. My God. My God. But
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: here's the remarkable ending. After multiple meals, countless beverages, several showers,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: an entire weekend of treating tap water like radioactive slug, sludge,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: not slug in Vegas, sludge, we headed to the airport.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: And that was that. I got to tell you, before
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: we talk about that part of it, if I ran
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: the big TP companies like Charmin, Extra Soft, if I
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: was an executive at one of the toilet paper companies,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: I would form forces with the other toilet paper companies.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: And I'd say, listen, let's pool our resources. Let's go
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: to Mexico. Let's go to a place like Mexico City
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: and And we have to figure out a way to
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: redo the plumbing and the water infrastructure in the entire city.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: We will make our money back tenfold selling toilet paper
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: to the people of Mexico. And so we just got
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: to spend the money and then we'll benefit down range.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: We're going to benefit for years and years and years
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: and years. Big TP. You got that free from me,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Big TP. Why don't you do that? Just go to
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: these places like Mexico City where they have the bad
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: infrastructure and the bad plumbing. You invest the money, and
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: you convince the government that you get to sell your
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: brand of toilet paper for the next 200 years or
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: whatever it is. All right, so back to the story.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: So I went through customs. I handed over my passport,
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: my documents, and I waited. And surely there would be
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: some kind of ceremony, a certificate, a medal. Perhaps the
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Mexican government would recognize my extraordinary achievement. because against all odds,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: I had survived. No Montezuma's revenge, no emergency pharmacy visit,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: no midnight gastrointestinal catastrophe. The only bathroom disaster was caused
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: by the absence of toilet paper, not contaminated water. And
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: I triumphantly returned to Southern California, walked into the Malheur Mansion.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: I greeted Moxie and I was reunited with my beloved
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: blue cup, filled it with ice, turned on the faucet,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: took a long, glorious drink. and appreciated something I had
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: previously taken for granted. I then went to the toilet.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: I made sure to do a nice big doo-doo, and
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: I had my toilet paper, and I flushed that toilet
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: paper down. Even though I love my bidet, I had
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: to do the toilet paper thing. The ability to consume
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: water without conducting a background investigation was nice. So viva Mexico,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: viva the Blue Cup, and more importantly... Viva a vacation
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: that ended without, again, a gastro catastrophe. Wonderful. Just great.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: All right. A little bit of foodie fun dedicated to
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Nico in Vancouver. Our pal Nico in Vancouver. Pizza Hut
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: bringing back cheesy bite stuffed crust pizza. You've got that.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: The pickle witch and pickle chips returning to Jimmy John's
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: where the smells are free. That's big for Alf. Alf's.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: one of the great members of the Malheur militia. He's
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: part of the senior group, the Malheur Fellows, and he
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: loves pickles. He sent a big box of pickle stuff
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: with me and Eddie, and it was quite the tale.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Subway has brought back the Fritos chicken enchilada sub. That
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: sounds good. McDonald's announced an $ 8 quarter pounder with cheese
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: meal deal. You've got that. Whataburger. What a shot. Whataburger
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: added a new bacon-blazed chicken sandwich and Sleighberry Whatafresher. Great names.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Popeyes is bringing back the Cajun-style turkey for Thanksgiving. So
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: you've got that. And Taco Bell debuting a new creamy
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: sriracha chicken nacho fry thing. So you've got that as well.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: On that note, we'll get out. We will have the
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: mailbag on Sunday. That would be tomorrow. I do not
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: know as of this time who's going to be on
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: the mailbag. Whoever answers their phone, we will let you know,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: give you the inside skinny on that. In the meantime,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: have a wonderful weekend. Saturday, enjoy the college football today
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: and all the baseball and all this stuff. And we
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: will talk to you next time. Again, no Montezuma's revenge. Bye-bye,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: as Dick and Dayton would say. Bye-bye.