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The Fifth Hour: The Maller Travel Log - Boston Edition · The Ben Maller Show

0:01
Speaker 1: Kubbooms.
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 sol fashion of fairness. He
0:13
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
0:16
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
0:18
Speaker 1: Wow.
0:19
Speaker 2: The clearing House of Hot takes break free for something special.
0:23
Speaker 2: The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard starts right now in.
0:29
Speaker 1: The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mahler
0:36
Speaker 1: and you. We are together again here through the magic
0:40
Speaker 1: of the podcast. Did the overnight show last night? Took
0:44
Speaker 1: a little bit of a pause, came in to the
0:48
Speaker 1: audio dojo, the remote studio, and here we are now.
0:53
Speaker 1: I know the podcast went up a little bit later
0:56
Speaker 1: than normal today. There's reasons for that. We won't get
0:59
Speaker 1: into it here, however, on this the Epic look Back,
1:04
Speaker 1: the first of a weekend, a trilogy of episodes of
1:07
Speaker 1: The Fifth Hour where we look back at the big
1:10
Speaker 1: trip to Boston this past week and beyond and everything
1:15
Speaker 1: that went into that, and all that wonderful stuff that'll
1:18
Speaker 1: be all coming up. We'll start with that today. Have
1:21
Speaker 1: more tales, I'm sure on the Saturday podcast tomorrow and
1:27
Speaker 1: then on Sunday we should have the traditional mail bag.
1:31
Speaker 1: So still time. It's Friday. If you get those questions
1:35
Speaker 1: in by tonight, for sure you'll be golden. If not,
1:39
Speaker 1: we can't guarantee anything. But if you want to email
1:41
Speaker 1: a question in Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com,
1:46
Speaker 1: Real fifth Email, Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com,
1:50
Speaker 1: if you would like to have your message be read
1:54
Speaker 1: on a future edition of the mail bag, again today,
1:58
Speaker 1: try to get those in as early as possible. We
2:00
Speaker 1: at least by the night, at least by the night
2:02
Speaker 1: at a somewhat reasonable hour, just so we have them
2:05
Speaker 1: and we can compile all of the questions that will
2:09
Speaker 1: come in. And so again, if you want to be
2:13
Speaker 1: part of that, the mail bag will return this week.
2:16
Speaker 1: It seems like we have a good amount of email already.
2:18
Speaker 1: If you'd like to try to get yours in wedge
2:21
Speaker 1: it in you can certainly do that if you want,
2:24
Speaker 1: again Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. On this one,
2:28
Speaker 1: we're gonna headline it McDonald's happy Meil buckets and to
2:33
Speaker 1: survive an atmospheric reentry. However, we start as all good
2:40
Speaker 1: stories do about us now. Now, some people travel to
2:46
Speaker 1: find themselves. I hear that a lot that you need
2:50
Speaker 1: to go out and travel around the world to learn
2:54
Speaker 1: who you are. I kind of know who I am
2:56
Speaker 1: at this point. I travel to confirm my suspicions that
2:59
Speaker 1: airport tourists and humanity in general are held together still
3:05
Speaker 1: with duct tape and bad judgment. And it's been a
3:09
Speaker 1: very busy travel month. I haven't traveled this much since
3:12
Speaker 1: I was much younger, and I was fussing around doing
3:15
Speaker 1: stuff with the Doyers before they actually became good. And
3:20
Speaker 1: we were just in Cincinnati a few weeks ago and
3:23
Speaker 1: had so much fun with everyone that came out to
3:25
Speaker 1: the event we did at Strong's Brick up in Pizzaia
3:28
Speaker 1: there in Newport, Kentucky, and just a lot of fun
3:32
Speaker 1: to drag. Can't close the deal Neil and his son
3:36
Speaker 1: and Tommy and Queen Roxane, Robbie the Mariner fan all
3:41
Speaker 1: around Cincinnati after the event, but to also meet Justin
3:45
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati and just Josh and Dick and Dayton and
3:49
Speaker 1: Ohio Al and everyone else. So I can't mention right
3:52
Speaker 1: now because though podcast podcast will go too long if
3:54
Speaker 1: I mentioned everyone otherwise. So for this week that we're
3:58
Speaker 1: going to talk about here was the Commonwealth Beny the
4:02
Speaker 1: nomad activated yet again. The Malard Globetrotter era is in
4:06
Speaker 1: full effect, a back to back and belly to belly
4:10
Speaker 1: set of Malard meet and greets, the road show that
4:13
Speaker 1: somehow became equal parts baseball trip history lesson and traveling
4:18
Speaker 1: three ring circus literally and figuratively more on the circus
4:23
Speaker 1: person of this event, the three ring circus portion of
4:26
Speaker 1: this event later. So now I want to point out
4:30
Speaker 1: we did not fly NonStop from California to Boston. Technically
4:36
Speaker 1: we could have. There are plenty of NonStop flights from
4:41
Speaker 1: where I am to Boston, where I am based to Boston,
4:46
Speaker 1: so technically we could have. However, that would have required
4:50
Speaker 1: using Los Angeles International Airport, and at this stage of
4:54
Speaker 1: my life, i'd rather, and I'm not making this up,
4:59
Speaker 1: I would rather add I had three hours and lose
5:02
Speaker 1: circulation in my legs, then willingly experience LAX in its
5:09
Speaker 1: full majesty. LAX is not an airport. It is an
5:14
Speaker 1: active social experiment designed by some very rude, strange people
5:20
Speaker 1: who clearly hate travelers. So I avoided at all costs,
5:25
Speaker 1: and I don't mind these long cross country flights stopping.
5:29
Speaker 1: I'd prefer to stop somewhere in the middle. Oftentimes you
5:32
Speaker 1: don't get to pick where you stop, and so anything
5:36
Speaker 1: to avoid LA. Now, on this trip to Boston, we
5:38
Speaker 1: stopped in Salt Lake City, which is not all that
5:41
Speaker 1: far away from LA. It's a short flight from LA
5:43
Speaker 1: to Salt Lake City. I was hoping for something a
5:46
Speaker 1: little further in the middle would have made things a
5:48
Speaker 1: lot better. We stop in Salt Lake, which allowed me
5:51
Speaker 1: to enjoy what I can only describe to you as
5:55
Speaker 1: the Mike Rabel experience. Not everyone gets this reference. In fact,
6:00
Speaker 1: I've learned, as I've told a few of my friends
6:03
Speaker 1: in the non sports world, they have no idea what
6:05
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. And I've explained this part of the
6:08
Speaker 1: story and they look at me like I'm speaking some
6:14
Speaker 1: foreign language or possibly from somewhere out in the cosmos.
6:18
Speaker 1: So the Mic Rabel experience in Utah, the top tourist
6:22
Speaker 1: attraction in that state is apparently not skiing. It's not
6:27
Speaker 1: the Majestic Mountains covered in snow. It's not the Mormon community,
6:32
Speaker 1: not the Utah Jazz Airport gift shop where we stopped
6:37
Speaker 1: and walked by. No, no, no, this is the boutique
6:42
Speaker 1: where Mike Rabel allegedly bought his wife a present during
6:47
Speaker 1: that wonderfully weird paparazzi mini scandal, which is still going on.
6:52
Speaker 1: He was canoodling with Diana Russini for years, and when
6:57
Speaker 1: the story broke, Vrabel famously was caught by the paparazzo
7:03
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City. At the airport there we visited
7:06
Speaker 1: the boutique known as Hip and Humble, a name that
7:09
Speaker 1: certainly sounds less like a store and more like a
7:13
Speaker 1: folk band. Opening for Mumford and Sons years ago, the
7:17
Speaker 1: paparazzo made that place famous Hip and Humble. Vrabel was
7:24
Speaker 1: there buying a sweater for his wife, at least according
7:30
Speaker 1: to the tabloids, although now some say that was a
7:32
Speaker 1: plant by Rabel's pr people to make them look good. Anyway,
7:37
Speaker 1: the Wednesday we traveled from the west to the east
7:42
Speaker 1: was entirely consumed by travel. By the time we had landed,
7:46
Speaker 1: me and the wife had landed at Logan International Airport,
7:49
Speaker 1: it was after midnight, the kind of arrival where your
7:54
Speaker 1: body no longer understands time zones, and your stomach thinks
7:59
Speaker 1: it's breakfast, while your eyes think they've died, the old
8:02
Speaker 1: things all falling apart, and I don't really get jet lag.
8:06
Speaker 1: It was just I was just worn out. I adn't
8:07
Speaker 1: get a lot of sleep. I'd done the overnight show
8:09
Speaker 1: leading into the travel day, and so everything's all jumbled
8:14
Speaker 1: up and whatnot. And then came Thursday, and that is
8:17
Speaker 1: where the malar Odyssey to Maine took place. So my
8:22
Speaker 1: wife and I had rented a car and we headed
8:24
Speaker 1: north on I ninety five through the coastline of Massachusetts,
8:29
Speaker 1: and we traveled up to Portsmouth in New Hampshire, which
8:34
Speaker 1: feels like the kind of a town that Hallmark movies
8:38
Speaker 1: are filmed in before somebody discovers a dead body behind
8:43
Speaker 1: a lopstock shack in Portsmouth, very similar to where Arnie
8:48
Speaker 1: Spaniard used to live in Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont, And
8:52
Speaker 1: in this case, Portsmouth, New Hampshire is a beautiful fishing
8:56
Speaker 1: town there. It wasn't really tourist season yet, but there
9:01
Speaker 1: was still a fair amount of tourists us included. You
9:03
Speaker 1: had a lot of brick buildings, little shops, any kind
9:07
Speaker 1: of little boat. They've got you covered there. Extremely New England,
9:12
Speaker 1: Extremely New England. We had lunch at a Burger place,
9:17
Speaker 1: continued north. After walking around Portsmouth a little bit. We
9:23
Speaker 1: walked by the Old Temple and some other old buildings,
9:27
Speaker 1: and then we went north that we didn't get back
9:29
Speaker 1: on nine ninety five. We used the local roads because
9:33
Speaker 1: that's the proper way to do coastal Maine. You don't
9:36
Speaker 1: get on I ninety five, You just you go. And
9:40
Speaker 1: to be fair, if you're not familiar with the geography,
9:42
Speaker 1: like Portsmouth, Maine, right across a little bridge is Maine
9:46
Speaker 1: from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, so it's right there. And you
9:52
Speaker 1: drive on these roads, you crawl through towns like Kittery, York,
9:57
Speaker 1: Oh god, quit, I believe I'm saying that right, and
9:59
Speaker 1: Kenny bunk Port, all of them. I'm telling you, they're
10:03
Speaker 1: postcard perfect little places that don't get a lot of
10:07
Speaker 1: publicity if you're not from there, and they're full of lighthouses.
10:12
Speaker 1: If you're into this kind of thing, if you ever
10:14
Speaker 1: end up traveling to Boston you want to get the
10:16
Speaker 1: full experience, I highly recommend it. I'm not from Boston,
10:21
Speaker 1: I've been able to travel there a lot. It's my
10:23
Speaker 1: favorite city to visit that I don't live in. And
10:28
Speaker 1: you travel around and it's got the lighthouses, the beaches,
10:33
Speaker 1: the old eastern beaches that are not quite like the West,
10:36
Speaker 1: and stores selling decorative driftwood for the price of a
10:42
Speaker 1: mortgage payment. And Kenny Bunkport, though for people of a
10:47
Speaker 1: certain age like me, my hands up there. If you're
10:50
Speaker 1: of a certain age, Kenny Bunkport still carries the aura
10:53
Speaker 1: of the political world, the aura of the Bush family compound.
10:59
Speaker 1: You know, back in the day, that place was treated
11:03
Speaker 1: like the Summer White House, Kenny Buckport, and it was
11:06
Speaker 1: always so far away. Being in California, had never been
11:08
Speaker 1: to that part of the country. And so you hear
11:12
Speaker 1: back when the internet didn't exist, and my parents would
11:14
Speaker 1: watch the news at night and they'd be like, they
11:17
Speaker 1: know the Western or the was it the Summer White
11:20
Speaker 1: House there and Kenny Buckport with President Bush addressed reporters.
11:23
Speaker 1: You know. I was like, Okay, So you hear Kenny Bunkport,
11:27
Speaker 1: and I think of the news and I pictured George H. W.
11:31
Speaker 1: Bush and boat shoes and that's it. So eventually we
11:35
Speaker 1: continued up and we reached Portland, a city that we
11:40
Speaker 1: had remembered fondly from previous trips. I talked very nicely
11:44
Speaker 1: about Portland, Maine and how beautiful it was. Now sadly,
11:49
Speaker 1: you should not go back and visit places you truly love,
11:51
Speaker 1: because they change. Portland now has what I call the fold.
11:57
Speaker 1: Now the fold is not a positive. The the fold
12:00
Speaker 1: would be the fentanyl fold. From a distance, it looked charming.
12:10
Speaker 1: It looked as we had remembered it. It looked just wonderful.
12:14
Speaker 1: The ocean views, the again, the old brick buildings, the
12:21
Speaker 1: working harbor. However, up close, the part of downtown that
12:27
Speaker 1: we happened to park in felt much rougher than it
12:32
Speaker 1: had been when we had last visited Portland, Maine. That
12:35
Speaker 1: is possible that we picked the wrong area. And it's
12:39
Speaker 1: also conceivable that every city, even mid size cities, now
12:45
Speaker 1: have these same zombie apocalypse starter kit that we have
12:49
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles or the Tenderloin district in San Francisco.
12:54
Speaker 1: You know, we've got the skid row here in LA
12:56
Speaker 1: and the locals were still cool in Maine. Right have
13:00
Speaker 1: mastered what I call the art of both being friendly
13:04
Speaker 1: and simultaneously looking annoyed that you exist and why are
13:07
Speaker 1: you here? Yet they pull it off in a very
13:10
Speaker 1: nice way. The city itself again, I go back. I'll
13:13
Speaker 1: use the word monet. It was like a monet painting,
13:16
Speaker 1: fantastic from far away, slightly concerning up close, slightly concerning
13:23
Speaker 1: up close. It's all about the lobster merch, the lobster.
13:28
Speaker 1: I think they sell more lobster shirts than they do
13:31
Speaker 1: actual lobster at this particular point, at least in that
13:34
Speaker 1: part of Maine. Now, we eventually drove back towards Boston,
13:37
Speaker 1: hoping for a late dinner on the North End, only
13:41
Speaker 1: discovered that nearly every chicken palm joint had closed for
13:45
Speaker 1: the night. And nothing hurts quite like arriving hungry after
13:50
Speaker 1: a long drive in the little Italy neighborhood, if you will,
13:56
Speaker 1: whatever it's called, they're the North End, and realizing that
13:59
Speaker 1: the universe has decided, no chicken palm for you, No
14:04
Speaker 1: fetichini for you. Instead, you know what you need. You
14:09
Speaker 1: need a little baggy of peanuts from the vending machine,
14:11
Speaker 1: and you need to eat those biscaff cookies that you
14:14
Speaker 1: saved from the trip. That's what you need. So we
14:18
Speaker 1: were defeated. Then on on Friday, well that brought a
14:22
Speaker 1: whole new adventure. We met up with the Kooper Loop
14:26
Speaker 1: his wife, Lorena, my wife, of course, was there for
14:29
Speaker 1: a trip to Salem, home of the infamous Salem witch
14:33
Speaker 1: trials of sixteen ninety two. I believe, I think I'm
14:37
Speaker 1: right on that a town's so cute they put witches
14:41
Speaker 1: on the police cars. So more than two hundred people
14:45
Speaker 1: were accused of witchcraft back in sixteen ninety two, and
14:48
Speaker 1: nineteen of those people were killed. They were executed. One
14:53
Speaker 1: poor soul was pressed to death with stones. Seems reasonable. Well,
14:58
Speaker 1: today Salem had transformed into what I would call a
15:01
Speaker 1: combination of bourbon street, venice, Beach Times Square, and hot topic.
15:08
Speaker 1: Every third person looked like they either practice witchcraft or
15:14
Speaker 1: managed an escape room, or did both. Had to go
15:18
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. I went to the sale mall, which is,
15:21
Speaker 1: I would argue, the second most depressing mall I've been to,
15:25
Speaker 1: outside of the mall in prim Nevada, which is now
15:30
Speaker 1: closing as prim Nevada is becoming officially a ghost town.
15:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, we paid for parking, and we paid for
15:39
Speaker 1: parking again emphasis unpaid, and we did pay, and we
15:44
Speaker 1: still got a parking ticket. The reason we got the
15:47
Speaker 1: parking ticket is because in my wife's rush to pay
15:50
Speaker 1: for the parking. Everything's on an app. Now she accidentally
15:54
Speaker 1: reversed the zone and the space that we were in
15:57
Speaker 1: on the app, and we got ding was a twenty
16:01
Speaker 1: five dollars donation straight to the taxpayers of Salem. You
16:05
Speaker 1: are welcome. The witches are apparently still extracting revenge, and
16:11
Speaker 1: oh did they get some more revenge? Because I have
16:16
Speaker 1: to share this story, and I want you to know,
16:19
Speaker 1: put every disclaimer I can. I like to support mom
16:22
Speaker 1: and pop restaurants. I like to support mom and pop
16:25
Speaker 1: businesses when possible. Do I eat it raising canes? Yes?
16:28
Speaker 1: I would I rather eat it a mom and pop restaurant. Absolutely,
16:31
Speaker 1: of course, I'd rather cook my own food at this
16:33
Speaker 1: particular point, as Angelina and some others know, over the years,
16:37
Speaker 1: where I've met you. So I visited what I considered
16:40
Speaker 1: to be the saddest museum I have I've ever been in,
16:44
Speaker 1: and I've been in some set. I've been to the
16:47
Speaker 1: College Hall whatever, the Champion thing in Indianapolis, which was horrific,
16:52
Speaker 1: complete waste of my time and money. Well, this was
16:55
Speaker 1: the Halloween Museum. How could you f up Halloween? My
16:58
Speaker 1: wife loves Halloween's favorite holiday. She can't get enough of Halloween.
17:03
Speaker 1: So we're walking by. These people are out there like, hey,
17:07
Speaker 1: come in Halloween Museum, you know, see all the great exhibits.
17:10
Speaker 1: And so my wife hears that. She's Oh, this can't
17:12
Speaker 1: be bad. It's about Halloween. So we pay our money
17:17
Speaker 1: and meanwhile I'm standing there realizing that we paid admission
17:21
Speaker 1: to see what among the highlights on them A hand
17:24
Speaker 1: to God, Hand to God. I am not making this up. Bree,
17:29
Speaker 1: who produces this podcast, she will testify to this, even
17:32
Speaker 1: though she wasn't there. Maybe she'll visit someday. So the
17:36
Speaker 1: Halloween Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The star of the show
17:41
Speaker 1: for me was a two thousand and one Target store
17:45
Speaker 1: display advertisement for Halloween that they featured to show you
17:50
Speaker 1: the history of Halloween and the Halloween Museum. But wait,
17:54
Speaker 1: there's more. How about the old McDonald's happy Meal buckets
17:59
Speaker 1: and Halloween toys that I had as a kid that
18:05
Speaker 1: are now part of the museum, the Halloween Museum, of
18:10
Speaker 1: the Museum of Halloween wherever it's called, and my god,
18:13
Speaker 1: the entire museum was roughly the size of a studio apartment.
18:18
Speaker 1: It was two rooms. You walk down a room, you
18:20
Speaker 1: make a left hand turn, you make another left hand turn,
18:24
Speaker 1: and then you walk down a hallway and then you're out.
18:29
Speaker 1: Keep my we paid twenty dollars for this. I have
18:33
Speaker 1: seen larger bathrooms at Bucky's. In fact, I believe a
18:38
Speaker 1: Bucky's bathroom has more to look at and enjoy than that.
18:44
Speaker 1: So I say this to encourage you to do better
18:49
Speaker 1: and be better. Okay, against my opinion on this, it
18:53
Speaker 1: was not a very enjoyable experience. I was hoping for more.
18:58
Speaker 1: Just give me a little more, give me a little more,
19:00
Speaker 1: or charge a little less, just make it free. Honestly, though,
19:04
Speaker 1: I guess it's that kind of stuff that made the
19:08
Speaker 1: trip memorable. It's always not the perfect stuff that it's
19:13
Speaker 1: always it's like, it's the weird moments, the dumb parking tickets.
19:17
Speaker 1: I tell you this every time we do one of
19:18
Speaker 1: these things. It's the weird stuff that the chicken palm
19:22
Speaker 1: that you didn't quite get, the airport boutique connected to
19:26
Speaker 1: a football gossip story that you've talked about, the realization
19:29
Speaker 1: that most of America is basically one giant roadside attraction,
19:35
Speaker 1: stick together stitched together by T shirts, coffee mugs, keychains,
19:41
Speaker 1: confusion tourists, wearing fleece and somehow, against all odds, it
19:47
Speaker 1: is still charming. So continuing that, and as Paul Harvey
19:55
Speaker 1: would say, the rest of the story, page two, So
19:57
Speaker 1: more on the traveling road side variety show featuring baseball,
20:04
Speaker 1: suntan lotion, introverts, under duress, and a legally questionable amount
20:10
Speaker 1: of Finway nostalgia. So after Salem, we shuffled back to
20:15
Speaker 1: the Seaport Area hotel like Civil War reenactors who had
20:21
Speaker 1: just seen too much. The rental car went into the valet.
20:25
Speaker 1: More on that over the weekend, and we returned it
20:29
Speaker 1: right there, natural habitat in the valet. We went to
20:33
Speaker 1: our rooms, rested for roughly an hour, not any more
20:37
Speaker 1: than that, actually a little less, not enough time to
20:40
Speaker 1: sleep and I'm not a napper, more like a medically
20:44
Speaker 1: supervised blinking exercise, and watching some HGTV House Hunters, and
20:50
Speaker 1: then regrouped in the lobby to form voltron or at
20:54
Speaker 1: least fill up an uber ride to Finway Park. Now,
20:57
Speaker 1: why did we take an uber ride? Because parking around
21:00
Speaker 1: Finway is not park. Parking around Finway is a public
21:06
Speaker 1: mugging that is endorsed by the city leaders in Boston
21:11
Speaker 1: there is not enough park, hardly any parking. So the
21:16
Speaker 1: plan was, simp get the game together. We're gonna meet
21:20
Speaker 1: Mike the Leprechaun at the legendary Cask and Flagon, have
21:24
Speaker 1: a beer stroll into the ballpark, enjoy America. A fool
21:29
Speaker 1: proof plan. What could go wrong? So this was the
21:33
Speaker 1: venue the Cask and Flagon for a previous event when
21:38
Speaker 1: I was double dipping at WEI doing some Red Sox
21:42
Speaker 1: review shows and filling in on We's wei's nighttime programming.
21:48
Speaker 1: We had Wayne from Southey at that event. I did
21:52
Speaker 1: it for Mala Blair from Maine. He showed up Blind
21:58
Speaker 1: Scott David from Winter Park, Florida and his parent Roscoe.
22:02
Speaker 1: We believe the late great David from Winter Park, Florida,
22:05
Speaker 1: the couple from Maine. That was so great, And that
22:09
Speaker 1: was then. Now it's a whole new world order, the
22:12
Speaker 1: Malard Militia. It's always changing. Other than Blind Scott and
22:16
Speaker 1: a lot of the characters, they stay with the show
22:19
Speaker 1: for a couple of years and they move on. And
22:21
Speaker 1: now I should have known immediately this evening, the Friday
22:26
Speaker 1: Malard Meet greet in Boston was going to go off
22:29
Speaker 1: the rails because Mike the Leprechaun was operating at a
22:33
Speaker 1: frequency detectable only by dolphins and late night AM radio listers.
22:39
Speaker 1: Within moments of my arrival, I was escorted by Mike
22:43
Speaker 1: the Leprecaun. He dragged me over to meet what he
22:47
Speaker 1: described as a Mike Rabel lookalike, which apparently is now
22:51
Speaker 1: a tourist attraction in New England. So okay, and the
22:54
Speaker 1: guy did look a lot like Mike Rabel. We took
22:58
Speaker 1: some photos and that was that. Then, while I was
23:00
Speaker 1: briefly in the powder room attempting to mentally prepare for
23:03
Speaker 1: more human interaction, Mike the Leprechaun allegedly coded himself in
23:10
Speaker 1: enough suntan lotion. I don't want to overdramatize this, and
23:16
Speaker 1: from what I understand, Mike the Leprechaun is such a character.
23:19
Speaker 1: This guy, he put on a show. He coded himself
23:22
Speaker 1: with enough suntann lotion to survive atmospheric reentry so he
23:28
Speaker 1: could go out to the moon, come back and he'd
23:31
Speaker 1: be safe. Now, I missed the actual event. I was
23:34
Speaker 1: in the powder room, okay, So I missed the actual
23:37
Speaker 1: The eyewitness accounts from Coop, his wife Lorrain, and my
23:40
Speaker 1: wife sounded like they were describing a maritime oil spill,
23:45
Speaker 1: like the Gulf of America or Gulf of Mexico. Every
23:50
Speaker 1: call it. They had the big Exxon, Well that was
23:53
Speaker 1: not Exxon. That was an oil rig that leaked right
23:56
Speaker 1: or the Exon Valdies in Australia or Australia in Alaska.
24:01
Speaker 1: It's early. So I was like, again, there's almost moments
24:04
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is my life. You know, this is
24:06
Speaker 1: my life. And you know I mentioned this all the time.
24:11
Speaker 1: I am an active, proud introvert. I am a member
24:13
Speaker 1: of the Introvert Society of America. I don't walk around
24:17
Speaker 1: announcing myself like a Carnival barker. I prefer the anonymity
24:21
Speaker 1: of late night talk radio. I enjoy blending into the wallpaper.
24:26
Speaker 1: If possible, I would just like to become part of
24:30
Speaker 1: the sofa. Unfortunately, the job I have requires me to
24:36
Speaker 1: be a little more out there than that. However, I
24:39
Speaker 1: pick my spots now. Mike the Leprechaun decided that his
24:42
Speaker 1: role on this part of the journey was to become
24:47
Speaker 1: my boxing promoter, my unofficial hype man, the flavor flave
24:52
Speaker 1: of the Malad Militia everywhere we walked around Finway, he
24:58
Speaker 1: kept doing the do you know this guy is routine?
25:02
Speaker 1: Like we were a ringside at a boxing way in
25:06
Speaker 1: And yeah, I was simultaneously flattered, horrified and searching for
25:12
Speaker 1: emergency exits and questioning whether or not I could call
25:15
Speaker 1: in sick and go back to the hotel. And yet, weirdly,
25:19
Speaker 1: this is the part that shocked me more than any
25:22
Speaker 1: It seemed like people were recognizing who I was, and
25:25
Speaker 1: not in a hey aren't you the actor from the
25:28
Speaker 1: insurance commercial Way? Actual listeners, real people, guys, the guys
25:34
Speaker 1: that sell merch outside Finway, one of the guys that's
25:37
Speaker 1: been there for thirty years or more on Lansdow Suite
25:41
Speaker 1: Street there, Loraina bought a shirt from the guy and
25:46
Speaker 1: Michael Leprecaun, Hey, this is Hollywood. Do you know who
25:49
Speaker 1: this is? You know that whole thing. And the guy
25:51
Speaker 1: claimed that he listened for years and it seemed legit,
25:54
Speaker 1: and he told some stuff that only a listener would know.
25:57
Speaker 1: And you know, random fans who knew details about the
26:01
Speaker 1: show either way, either way they were you know, they
26:04
Speaker 1: were incredibly great at improv or This little overnight radio
26:10
Speaker 1: show genuinely reaches humans So this was deeply unsettling to
26:18
Speaker 1: me personally because in my head the show still feels
26:21
Speaker 1: like it's being broadcast from a submarine somewhere under Nebraska,
26:24
Speaker 1: and the only people that listen are hollering James Blind,
26:29
Speaker 1: Scott Marked, the full Name Guy, and a few others.
26:33
Speaker 1: That's it. So then we entered the cathedral itself. Finway
26:37
Speaker 1: Pack the game was the Red Sox and Rays technically, however, honestly,
26:44
Speaker 1: the star was Finway. The old old Bayard doesn't feel manufactured.
26:50
Speaker 1: Modern stadiums all feel like they were focused grouped by
26:54
Speaker 1: tech consultants who say words like synergy. Finnway feel alive,
27:00
Speaker 1: slightly crooked, very imperfect, a little cranky, a little cranky
27:07
Speaker 1: like an old uncle who still complains about Ted Williams
27:10
Speaker 1: getting snubbed in nineteen forty one, and that's why he's
27:14
Speaker 1: on ice right now. The place it just has a
27:18
Speaker 1: breadth to it, and even the seats appear emotionally exhausted. Now,
27:23
Speaker 1: we were very lucky. We got hooked up thanks to
27:25
Speaker 1: mikel leprechaon Mike in New Hampshire with our pavilion I
27:28
Speaker 1: think it's called the Pavilion Club seats which were tremendous
27:33
Speaker 1: wild views of Finnways, Green Monster, and the whole Boston skyline,
27:39
Speaker 1: and it was just wonderful, just wonderful, and the energy
27:43
Speaker 1: in the park was surprisingly lively, considering this version of
27:48
Speaker 1: the Socks has all the consistency of public Wi Fi.
27:53
Speaker 1: During the game, I went down to find the boys room,
27:58
Speaker 1: and Will from Boston and his buddy Sam tracked me
28:02
Speaker 1: down to say hello, tremendous guys. Will's a big podcast listener,
28:06
Speaker 1: very kind, always humbling when somebody voluntarily admits that they
28:11
Speaker 1: they will spend hours listening to my nonsense. And we
28:14
Speaker 1: chatted about Will had mentioned one of the pods that
28:17
Speaker 1: we had done a while back. Talked about the history
28:19
Speaker 1: of the national anthem at sporting events and how it
28:23
Speaker 1: started mostly because of marketing. They could sell some extra
28:28
Speaker 1: tickets and it was in Chicago and during World Wars,
28:33
Speaker 1: and it just kind of stuck around and it became
28:36
Speaker 1: a thing and if you didn't do it, you were bad,
28:38
Speaker 1: and you had to do it. And that's that. And now,
28:41
Speaker 1: as for the food, excellent. My go to as always
28:45
Speaker 1: the soft pretzel, partly because I'm a simple man and
28:49
Speaker 1: partly because I'm still emotionally damaged from a previous episode
28:52
Speaker 1: of this podcast. After paying nearly thirteen dollars for a
28:56
Speaker 1: pretzel in Cincinnati, the Reds charged extra for cheese like
29:02
Speaker 1: it was black market. Caviare, like, what are you doing,
29:08
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Reds? For God's sakes, I thought stuff was supposed
29:10
Speaker 1: to be cheaper. In Boston, that same thirteen dollars pretzel
29:15
Speaker 1: was six. I think it was like six bucks. No
29:18
Speaker 1: cheese cup. I didn't need the cheese cup. The member
29:21
Speaker 1: was cold cheese in Cincinnati. At at least they didn't
29:26
Speaker 1: need to refinance my home to get that extra piece,
29:29
Speaker 1: you know, that little piece of cheese, a cup of cheese. Meanwhile,
29:33
Speaker 1: the Red Sox won two nothing on home runs by
29:37
Speaker 1: William Abreu and Sedane Rafaela. If you know who those
29:42
Speaker 1: guys are, most don't, and Connelly early struck out eight
29:47
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay batters, and so he was on the mound
29:50
Speaker 1: the star of the show there. I am I'm told
29:52
Speaker 1: obligated to mention the baseball part of this because technically
29:57
Speaker 1: that's partially why we were there. No after the game,
30:00
Speaker 1: we did wander over the Mighty Squirrel Brewing Company after
30:04
Speaker 1: having to ask a couple of Boston's finest How the
30:08
Speaker 1: hell that we get over to the Mighty Squirrel Brewing
30:12
Speaker 1: Company from Fenway, which was real close and turned into
30:16
Speaker 1: a true centerpiece of the evening. A tremendous set up
30:19
Speaker 1: upstairs thanks to Jamie Walsh, the GM there, who treated
30:23
Speaker 1: us unbelievably well, total pro You can tell this man
30:28
Speaker 1: has been in the game for a while. He also
30:30
Speaker 1: carried himself like a man who absolutely knows where several
30:34
Speaker 1: metaphorical Red Sox bodies may or may not be buried.
30:38
Speaker 1: Who knows? And then came the parade of characters. Let
30:42
Speaker 1: me introduce you to some of these guys, because Kathy
30:44
Speaker 1: and Madison demands it. She's a woman that needs to know.
30:48
Speaker 1: So I walked upstairs. The first person I was greeted
30:51
Speaker 1: by was Dave the trash Man with his son, who
30:55
Speaker 1: greeted me first when I got upstairs and immediately brought
30:59
Speaker 1: enough energy to power eastern Massachusetts. The man radiated enthusiasm,
31:07
Speaker 1: genuine warm, just a good soul, right hilarious, and you
31:14
Speaker 1: don't call the show or anything like that, but he
31:15
Speaker 1: and his son were there, and his kid's a really
31:17
Speaker 1: cool kid, and he's like the rival now of Danny DeVito,
31:22
Speaker 1: not the actor, of course, our fellow trash man somehow
31:26
Speaker 1: just made perfect sense in the Mallard universe. Dana, better
31:29
Speaker 1: known by his stage name The Cape Cod Paperboy, showed
31:33
Speaker 1: up his dad still delivering papers, I believe in his eighties,
31:36
Speaker 1: which means he has worked approximately seventy nine years, longer
31:40
Speaker 1: than most people under thirty are willing to. And the
31:43
Speaker 1: cape Cod paper Boy a name you probably know. He's
31:46
Speaker 1: been very active on social media over the years, picks
31:49
Speaker 1: his spots and telling me about life on the Cape
31:52
Speaker 1: and all that. Phil from Boston Boy, it was wonderful
31:54
Speaker 1: to see Phil. I've done enough of these things now
31:57
Speaker 1: in Boston where I just some of the faces I
31:59
Speaker 1: kind of recognized, and Phil was one of them. He
32:02
Speaker 1: rolled in, of course, hard to miss a guy wearing
32:04
Speaker 1: a vintage black Mallar merch item, the famous T shirt
32:09
Speaker 1: that we sold years ago, and it's like finding It's
32:13
Speaker 1: like discovering an ancient artifact from a lost civilization. It
32:18
Speaker 1: was a different period of time on the show, and
32:21
Speaker 1: Phil also explained to me how the Finway Wieners had
32:27
Speaker 1: gone down since the glory days. I used to romanticize
32:30
Speaker 1: the Monster Dogs, the Finway Monster Dog, and Phil pointed
32:35
Speaker 1: out that it's just not the same. Avellino and Priscilla
32:39
Speaker 1: as a lady there they showed up great people. Avellino
32:43
Speaker 1: works on bridges, he fixes How about this job, my guy,
32:47
Speaker 1: Avellino man, he works on bridges, fixing bridges around Boston,
32:52
Speaker 1: and he's one of our four AM listeners getting the
32:55
Speaker 1: jump on the traffic. The four AM, I think for
32:59
Speaker 1: maybe five maybe it's like five to six. But he's
33:01
Speaker 1: up early. He's up early, as was Dave the trash Man.
33:05
Speaker 1: And they don't hear the whole show. They just tow
33:07
Speaker 1: the end of it. And he that means, that means
33:11
Speaker 1: something right. And so while the rest of society is unconscious,
33:16
Speaker 1: we got the bridge workers, the garbage guys, the truck
33:19
Speaker 1: drivers who are all listening to me babble about sports
33:23
Speaker 1: and UFOs and all that stuff. And that's still hard
33:28
Speaker 1: to process. Like I have Alina, really cool to chat
33:31
Speaker 1: with him, very nice things to say, pumped up my ego,
33:35
Speaker 1: which I appreciate that I didn't you need that it
33:38
Speaker 1: doesn't hurt. And he mentioned he wanted to meet Blind Scott,
33:42
Speaker 1: and seemed like everyone did more than that. In a minute,
33:44
Speaker 1: Jack was there, one of the genuine good souls. Also
33:48
Speaker 1: met met his his you know his what's the word
33:54
Speaker 1: I'm looking for? I met his story in life. He
33:57
Speaker 1: very quite kindness is the way I'll described Jack. The
34:00
Speaker 1: kind of person who restores your faith in humanity a
34:02
Speaker 1: little bit. He's helping taking care of a loved one
34:04
Speaker 1: relative of his who's had a few curveballs from the
34:08
Speaker 1: game of life. And then so Jack was there, and
34:11
Speaker 1: Avelino and all these guys, and then blind Scott. Blind
34:15
Speaker 1: Scott became the folk hero of the night, and it
34:18
Speaker 1: was pretty funny. People kept buying him drinks at a
34:22
Speaker 1: pace usually associated with bachelor parties or some kind of
34:28
Speaker 1: naval victory. And by the end of the evening, I
34:33
Speaker 1: and it wasn't even the end. I was just like,
34:34
Speaker 1: we had to move downstairs because they were closing the upstairs.
34:36
Speaker 1: So we moved downstairs, and I escorted blind Scott downstairs.
34:43
Speaker 1: Because less of helping a friend or in this case,
34:47
Speaker 1: a caller, and more of guiding a shop. It was
34:49
Speaker 1: kind of like guiding a shopping cart with one bad wheel,
34:52
Speaker 1: and I was very hard to move it. It was
34:54
Speaker 1: absolute chaos. It was beautiful chaos. And that's the thing again.
34:58
Speaker 1: I bring this up all the time, and it's like, well,
35:00
Speaker 1: you keep repeating yourself. I don't want has to say it.
35:02
Speaker 1: These meet and greets, they sound silly. Who would want
35:05
Speaker 1: to go to that? They're dumb? Why do you do it?
35:07
Speaker 1: You know it cost you your time and all that stuff.
35:11
Speaker 1: And then you know when you when you describe them
35:14
Speaker 1: and you in an email or you know, if you
35:16
Speaker 1: have a pad of paper or something, it's a bunch
35:19
Speaker 1: of radio listeners gathering in random bars and restaurants after
35:23
Speaker 1: baseball games. And it's but it's more than that. It's
35:26
Speaker 1: more than that. You know Tip O'Neil famously and he's
35:30
Speaker 1: a Boston political icon from a million years ago. But
35:33
Speaker 1: Tip O'Neil famously said, all politics is local, and I
35:36
Speaker 1: believe the same as with syndicated sports radio. And Boston
35:41
Speaker 1: has always been a town that does not embrace what
35:43
Speaker 1: we do. I heard that when I first got in
35:46
Speaker 1: the business. It's a local sports radio town. It does
35:49
Speaker 1: not do syndication. They syndicated shows have never done well
35:52
Speaker 1: on the radio in Boston. And we've made a bit
35:56
Speaker 1: of an impact on the overnight We've been on there
35:57
Speaker 1: a long time, and it's in large part, I think
36:00
Speaker 1: because of things like this, Like this show airs on
36:04
Speaker 1: a lot of places, a lot of back roads, a
36:07
Speaker 1: lot of big cities, all over the United States and Canada,
36:10
Speaker 1: on six hundred plus affiliates. Very lucky. You got a
36:13
Speaker 1: big bully pulpit American Forces Network. We're on serious XM
36:18
Speaker 1: satellite radio. However, the real magic is these little dopey moments,
36:24
Speaker 1: these malard meat beause, these tiny human interactions, handshakes, stories,
36:30
Speaker 1: breaking bread, quick conversation that last five minutes and somehow
36:35
Speaker 1: sticks in your memory forever. And to me, that's it.
36:41
Speaker 1: You break bread. I don't always eat at these things.
36:43
Speaker 1: But you're together, and you're there and you're bonding, and
36:46
Speaker 1: there's a connection there, and that's that's what the Mallard
36:49
Speaker 1: Militia really is, right, Not downloads or ratings. I have
36:54
Speaker 1: to worry about that crap at work, not about an
36:57
Speaker 1: affiliate map. That's not your problem, that's somebody else's problem.
37:02
Speaker 1: It is a collection of wonderfully odd people, yours truly included.
37:07
Speaker 1: Deciding that for one evening, despite possibly having social anxiety issues,
37:12
Speaker 1: being introverted and whatnot, for one evening you stop being
37:18
Speaker 1: this anonymous voice in the dark and become real. And
37:21
Speaker 1: also some of you have never even been voices in
37:24
Speaker 1: the night. You just like Dave the trash Man and
37:26
Speaker 1: these other guys. You know, our friend Avelino who's fixing bridges,
37:33
Speaker 1: not a caller, not a caller, but there they were
37:36
Speaker 1: so for one little moment. So we've we've gone very
37:40
Speaker 1: long on this pod, so we will will put the
37:43
Speaker 1: pause button on. This will recap the Worcester part of
37:46
Speaker 1: the special weekend on tomorrow's podcast, the Saturday Podcast. This
37:50
Speaker 1: will include a special Cloak and Dagger meeting in the
37:54
Speaker 1: middle of the night, also a UFO encounter with what
38:00
Speaker 1: was it alf Or was it not alf Andre? Where
38:03
Speaker 1: was the dog? And a whole lot more, among others.
38:07
Speaker 1: All of that to look forward to as we continue
38:08
Speaker 1: our in depth coverage all weekend long, as we look
38:11
Speaker 1: back at the great Malord sojourn to the Commonwealth and
38:16
Speaker 1: all that that included. And until then, we'll say, as
38:20
Speaker 1: Dick and Dayton would say, bye bye, bye bye,