Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Round Table Benny

Transcript

The Fifth Hour: Round Table Benny · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
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
0:12
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
0:15
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
0:17
Speaker 1: Wow.
0:18
Speaker 2: The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
0:22
Speaker 2: The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallor starts right now.
0:29
Speaker 1: In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben
0:35
Speaker 1: Malor and you there were hanging out side by side.
0:39
Speaker 1: Happy Saturday to you as we are one week away,
0:44
Speaker 1: one week from today, the Big Malor Meet and Greet
0:48
Speaker 1: today the eighteenth of April, and next Saturday we're coming
0:52
Speaker 1: to the Cincinnati area. Cannot wait. Hopefully you will be
0:56
Speaker 1: able to attend if you're in that region, if it's
0:59
Speaker 1: geographically desirable. Mentioned on the Friday podcast, we've had a
1:04
Speaker 1: bunch of RSVPs. This looks like it's gonna be a
1:08
Speaker 1: pretty good crowd. And I'm always I always give the
1:12
Speaker 1: same disclaimer. I'm gonna give it seven more times before
1:15
Speaker 1: the event that Hey, I don't know who's gonna show up.
1:18
Speaker 1: I've done some of these where very few people show up.
1:21
Speaker 1: I've done somewhere they're huge crowds. We've had big crowds
1:23
Speaker 1: in Boston, Vegas, We've had some big ones in la
1:28
Speaker 1: we had a great crowd in Seattle when we were
1:31
Speaker 1: up there. So you never know, you never know who's
1:33
Speaker 1: gonna show up. And that's the beauty of the Malord
1:36
Speaker 1: meet and greets. They're not promoted, they just kind of happened.
1:41
Speaker 1: So we're excited about this, and just like we're excited
1:44
Speaker 1: to go to Boston in May and really excited about
1:47
Speaker 1: the WUSS game and to meet some legends who are
1:51
Speaker 1: planning on attending that. So it's gonna be a lot,
1:54
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, a lot of fun on this edition,
1:57
Speaker 1: the Saturday Special Edition of the Fifth Hour, we've got
2:01
Speaker 1: walk like Vince McMahon and taken over like a cruise ship. However,
2:09
Speaker 1: we begin with this, it's the Saturday podcast, So it
2:13
Speaker 1: is the life of Malor the Life of Malor, and
2:18
Speaker 1: the person who will be in the number two chair
2:20
Speaker 1: eventually can also join us and give the their life,
2:23
Speaker 1: their life story, So the Life of Malar and this
2:26
Speaker 1: is going to be ridiculous and also on brand for
2:30
Speaker 1: the Fifth Hour podcast. So there is no man, woman,
2:34
Speaker 1: or child that is in this world that sets out
2:38
Speaker 1: to become a table guy. It doesn't exist. It doesn't.
2:44
Speaker 1: You don't wake up one morning and look in the
2:46
Speaker 1: mirror and say, you know what I want? You know
2:48
Speaker 1: what I need. Of course I avoid the mirror. I
2:51
Speaker 1: try not to look. You don't say you know you
2:54
Speaker 1: know what I want? I want an outdoor table. That
2:58
Speaker 1: is not how life works. Life happens to you. It
3:03
Speaker 1: turns out the tables happened to you. And yet here
3:06
Speaker 1: we are. So the big news this last week or
3:09
Speaker 1: so at the Malor mansion. We have a new table.
3:14
Speaker 1: Not just any table, a round table, capital R capital
3:20
Speaker 1: t the kind of table that walks into your backyard,
3:24
Speaker 1: looks around and immediately judges your patio furniture and the
3:30
Speaker 1: plant that's off to the side. And why is there
3:34
Speaker 1: some moxiepoo over there? Clean that up right now? What's
3:38
Speaker 1: really going on there? We need to talk. So the
3:42
Speaker 1: wife found it. I wasn't looking for a table. Why
3:45
Speaker 1: would I look for a table, of course she did.
3:47
Speaker 1: The wife always finds it. I find parking tickets. She
3:51
Speaker 1: finds hidden treasure or was it hidden treasure? So the
3:55
Speaker 1: table is used in the price tag on said used
3:59
Speaker 1: table four hundred and fifty dollars. Now, I do not
4:04
Speaker 1: want to alarm you. I don't want to alarm anyone. However,
4:08
Speaker 1: when let me phrase it this way, if you're like me,
4:12
Speaker 1: when I hear outdoor furniture use table four hundred and
4:18
Speaker 1: fifty dollars, my brain goes to a deep dark place
4:25
Speaker 1: like the professional wrestler the junkyard dog back in the
4:28
Speaker 1: day and in the cartoon bubble. In my head, I
4:33
Speaker 1: close my eyes and I imagine splintered wood, rusted screws,
4:39
Speaker 1: something sticky. There's always something sticky. When you buy a
4:45
Speaker 1: used product and a smell an odor, you assume that
4:51
Speaker 1: just by touching the item, you're going to need a
4:55
Speaker 1: tetanus shot, that there must be some kind of antibiotics
5:00
Speaker 1: that are needed for the item that you bought used.
5:03
Speaker 1: You assume that you are going to regret this. I
5:06
Speaker 1: assumed this is going to be a regret. And nope, nope, yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: believe it or not. The table is built, and I
5:16
Speaker 1: don't want to be too dramatic. It's built like it
5:19
Speaker 1: was commissioned by a king, like way back who did
5:25
Speaker 1: not trust his guests. The table is solid, it is heavy,
5:30
Speaker 1: it is immovable. If the wind picks up, this table
5:35
Speaker 1: does not move. The house moves. There's an earthquake, The
5:40
Speaker 1: table doesn't move. The neighbors can move. Hell no, I
5:45
Speaker 1: might move. The table will stay. And it's round, which
5:51
Speaker 1: is very important. Round tables just hit you differently. They do.
5:55
Speaker 1: They're just better. Rectangular tables are for arguments. You sit
6:00
Speaker 1: across from someone, you lock eyes, you say something you regret, thanksgiving, politics,
6:10
Speaker 1: grievances from the nineties, all that crap. The round table different.
6:17
Speaker 1: They diffuse the tension. The round table says, let's all
6:21
Speaker 1: get along, that's all. There's no head of the table.
6:24
Speaker 1: There's no class system at a round table. There's no
6:27
Speaker 1: power seat. We're all equals here everyone. There's no corners,
6:34
Speaker 1: which is ironic because the table itself. I'm telling you,
6:37
Speaker 1: round tables feel like royalty. This table's got eight chairs,
6:42
Speaker 1: eight and they're comfortable, wide chairs for your fat ass.
6:47
Speaker 1: And I don't even think I even know eight people
6:49
Speaker 1: I would want to sit at a table with. Okay,
6:52
Speaker 1: certainly not at the same time. And yet there they
6:55
Speaker 1: were eight chairs, all in really good shape, really good shape,
6:59
Speaker 1: just waiting empty, judging me the ho thing. We looked
7:03
Speaker 1: it up because this is what you do in modern times.
7:08
Speaker 1: You can't just enjoy something. You have to validate it
7:11
Speaker 1: with the interweb. You have to confirm that your happiness
7:16
Speaker 1: is market approved. Survey says, we looked up the price,
7:20
Speaker 1: the retail price for the table. Again, we paid four
7:24
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty bucks for it, so it was like
7:26
Speaker 1: four hundred So the retail price survey says, what do
7:29
Speaker 1: you think it is? You think you think it was
7:31
Speaker 1: actually worth like five hundred bucks. You think it was
7:34
Speaker 1: worth six hundred bucks. Again, I described it very well.
7:37
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful, thick, well made, built like a tank table.
7:42
Speaker 1: So when I saw the price on the interwep if
7:45
Speaker 1: I want to buy this table brand new, I nearly
7:46
Speaker 1: fell out on my chair. Yeah with eight chairs. Now
7:52
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about those eight chairs. I never fell
7:54
Speaker 1: out my bad chair, the indoor chair, the chair that
7:58
Speaker 1: knows its time is limited. And so now suddenly I'm
8:01
Speaker 1: not a guy who was part of a group to
8:05
Speaker 1: buy a used table. I'm the guy who made an
8:08
Speaker 1: investment a savvy consumer, which I had little to nothing
8:12
Speaker 1: to do with a bargain hunter Jamboree, A man of
8:18
Speaker 1: the people. I gotta tell you, I walk a little differently,
8:21
Speaker 1: not like an Egyptian. I walk like Vince McMahon into
8:24
Speaker 1: the ring doing the pimp walk back in the heyday
8:27
Speaker 1: of professional wrestling. We are happy to report that the
8:30
Speaker 1: table has adjusted to its new home a little too quickly.
8:35
Speaker 1: It's already part of the family. It has opinions, it
8:38
Speaker 1: has expectations, it has needs. It tells me, and I
8:43
Speaker 1: didn't know tables katalk, but it tells me it's ready
8:45
Speaker 1: for Benny's Burgers. And I said, how the hell do
8:48
Speaker 1: you know about Benny's Burgers. I said, well, I had
8:50
Speaker 1: a conversation with the griddle. I said, I didn't know
8:53
Speaker 1: the griddle could talk. Yeah, the griddle talk. It says,
8:55
Speaker 1: the burgers are pretty good, and so not regular burgers,
8:58
Speaker 1: not store brand burgers, McDonald's burgers or Burger King burgers,
9:02
Speaker 1: no Whoppers, none of that. Benny's burgers. There's a standard.
9:06
Speaker 1: Now there's pressure because the the grit the griddle said
9:10
Speaker 1: this is the good thing. And the griddle is a
9:12
Speaker 1: little nervous now because now it's gotta it's gotta serve
9:15
Speaker 1: up those burgers. Pretty well, because the new tables like, hey,
9:19
Speaker 1: I want I want that burger on my on my table.
9:22
Speaker 1: And then Moxie came over. Then there's Moxie, my bulldog,
9:26
Speaker 1: my editor, my life coach. Moxy saw the table, okay,
9:30
Speaker 1: saw the table, walked up to it, sniffed it, and
9:35
Speaker 1: when I say walked, walked very slowly, sniffed it and
9:38
Speaker 1: immediately marked her territory, which in dog language means welcome
9:41
Speaker 1: to the family, baby, and it also means you belong
9:45
Speaker 1: to me, and I'm the head, bitch, and you are
9:48
Speaker 1: just some random piece of metal. You're a hunk of metal,
9:51
Speaker 1: like the World Series trophy. The table didn't necessarily love that.
9:57
Speaker 1: I understand the table, you know, just you don't stood it.
10:00
Speaker 1: Didn't love it. Okay, fine, So these are the little
10:04
Speaker 1: victories in life that are huge because the world, as
10:09
Speaker 1: we know, is often a racket. It's a hustle. Everyone's
10:14
Speaker 1: doing the hustle. Gas prices. You go, I don't drink coffee,
10:21
Speaker 1: the wife does. You go to Starbucks and the people say,
10:24
Speaker 1: can you give me a tip? Well, I mean I
10:25
Speaker 1: just picked up the cup. I did. I went to
10:27
Speaker 1: pick it up, I ordered it, and you know, the
10:29
Speaker 1: service fees drive me nuts. The processing fees, the convenience
10:34
Speaker 1: fees for things that are not convenient. How about the
10:37
Speaker 1: hotel resort fees at places that are not resorts. It's
10:41
Speaker 1: death by a thousand third search charges. And you try
10:45
Speaker 1: to buy a ticket to a concert, and I don't
10:47
Speaker 1: go to a lot of concerts or shows or whatever,
10:51
Speaker 1: but you buy a ticket and suddenly you're funding three
10:54
Speaker 1: different departments you didn't even know existing. There's my favorite
11:00
Speaker 1: is the handling fee on that when you buy buy tickets,
11:04
Speaker 1: everything's digital now. Very rarely can you even get a
11:08
Speaker 1: paper ticket, So you're punching in your information. They are
11:14
Speaker 1: then sending you it's all computerized. They're sending you a
11:18
Speaker 1: digital ticket. So what exactly are you handling? I'm asking
11:22
Speaker 1: for a friend, I clicked a button, that's it, and
11:25
Speaker 1: you sent something that was likely generated by AI. You've
11:30
Speaker 1: got our politicians, God bless them. They add taxes like
11:34
Speaker 1: toppings on a Sunday and just keep piling them on,
11:38
Speaker 1: piling them on. It's pretty crazy. Or it's like going
11:43
Speaker 1: to buy a pizza and it's like, well I just
11:45
Speaker 1: want to cheese pizza. Well, now you know what we'll
11:47
Speaker 1: give you allives, and we're gonna give you some extra obs.
11:50
Speaker 1: Well I don't want olives. I don't really like alls.
11:51
Speaker 1: Well we got you extra olives, that's it. But I
11:54
Speaker 1: don't like them. Just eat them. It's fine. So when
11:58
Speaker 1: something breaks your way, this is a this is a break.
12:02
Speaker 1: This is the universe saying, you know what, big fella,
12:05
Speaker 1: here's here's You deserve a break today, not at McDonald's,
12:09
Speaker 1: off some website that sells old outdoor tables. And so
12:13
Speaker 1: you take it. You don't question it, you don't overthink it,
12:16
Speaker 1: you don't say what's the catch. You just sit at
12:19
Speaker 1: the table. The roundtable sounds good. The roundtable again capitalized
12:25
Speaker 1: because it insists, and it's now the centerpiece of the backyard.
12:30
Speaker 1: It's the star of the show. It's not subtle, it
12:33
Speaker 1: doesn't blend in. It announces itself. It says, gather here, peasants,
12:40
Speaker 1: bring me food, and try not to screw this up.
12:45
Speaker 1: You know. It whispers that. It whispers that, And there
12:47
Speaker 1: is something almost poetic that's actually too strong here mildly
12:53
Speaker 1: amusing about the fact that I've always had an affection
12:57
Speaker 1: for roundtable pizza, and I believe it's northern California institution
13:03
Speaker 1: round Table Pizza. There are some locations in southern California.
13:06
Speaker 1: There's one item in particular that is really amazing on
13:10
Speaker 1: the menu. It's the garlic twist, the Parmesan garlic twists.
13:13
Speaker 1: I believe it's got some different name. It's dangerous, overpowering
13:19
Speaker 1: garlic with cheese and dough, and the kind you eat
13:25
Speaker 1: one of and then suddenly suddenly you have another and another,
13:30
Speaker 1: and then hours later you're questioning all of your decisions
13:34
Speaker 1: in life. Now I have been making a knockoff version
13:39
Speaker 1: of those garlic twists for years. They're a ripoff version.
13:46
Speaker 1: I make them with enthusiasm, extra piles of cheese, but
13:49
Speaker 1: they're not the same quality. They're poorly made compared to that.
13:53
Speaker 1: So maybe this was destiny manifest destiny. It was inevitable
14:00
Speaker 1: possible that I was always meant to end up owning
14:02
Speaker 1: as an adult, a literal round table. Maybe the universe
14:06
Speaker 1: has a sense of humor. I certainly, I certainly don't
14:09
Speaker 1: have a good one. And now I have the table.
14:11
Speaker 1: I've got these beautiful chairs, I have the griddle. I
14:14
Speaker 1: have the dog who thinks she owns all of that.
14:19
Speaker 1: What I don't have is coordination or balance or the
14:24
Speaker 1: ability to carry eight plates at once without some kind
14:28
Speaker 1: of kerfluffle. And yeah, so there will be spills, there
14:34
Speaker 1: will be items dropped, there will be apologies. Because if
14:38
Speaker 1: there's one thing I've learned, it's this, you cannot have
14:43
Speaker 1: the perfect table unless you can you can have it.
14:49
Speaker 1: You can have the perfect setup. I guess you can
14:52
Speaker 1: have all these great plans and then you have to
14:54
Speaker 1: live them. You have to live life, you know, And
14:56
Speaker 1: it's like that old quote, God laughs at your plans.
14:58
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess you who have a perfect table,
15:01
Speaker 1: you'd have this great set up, the plan, and then
15:03
Speaker 1: stuff happens, which is why ultimately the table is the star,
15:07
Speaker 1: not me. Never me. The table is there. It's gonna
15:12
Speaker 1: be reliable. I can tell it's gonna outlive me, and
15:16
Speaker 1: it'll be wonderful. And I'm sure I will cook burgers
15:19
Speaker 1: the way I like them, which is well done, and
15:21
Speaker 1: people will complain, those evil people that like blood and
15:24
Speaker 1: see the blood in the meat. So the table just
15:29
Speaker 1: is and for once, just once, that's enough fired up
15:33
Speaker 1: for the table, fired up for the table. So meanwhile,
15:38
Speaker 1: as we turn the page on this The Fifth Hour Podcast,
15:41
Speaker 1: one week one week if you forgot earlier, one week
15:44
Speaker 1: from the great Cincinnati area mallor meet and greet, and
15:48
Speaker 1: we'll be in Newport, Kentucky, just a mile away from
15:51
Speaker 1: the Reds Ballpark. They're having a grand old time, grand
15:54
Speaker 1: old time at Strong's Brick Oven Pizzeria in Newport, Kentuck.
16:00
Speaker 1: Looking for that. So I have never been to the
16:05
Speaker 1: Coachella music venue. I guess they call it technically the
16:10
Speaker 1: Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. So by not going
16:15
Speaker 1: to Coachella, I of course immediately qualify as an expert
16:19
Speaker 1: on the subject. I believe that's how this works. The
16:23
Speaker 1: less you've experienced something, the more qualified you are to
16:28
Speaker 1: explain it. So I believe that's how people review restaurants
16:34
Speaker 1: on Yelp. Anyway, a radio friend of mine I was
16:39
Speaker 1: in a text chain with reached out to me the
16:43
Speaker 1: other day and asked if I was going out to Coachella,
16:48
Speaker 1: which is a very odd question to ask considering A
16:52
Speaker 1: I like music, I'm not a music person, and B
16:56
Speaker 1: I don't generally enjoy large events. So I was I
17:02
Speaker 1: was like, why are you asking me this? You know
17:03
Speaker 1: the answer. Are you just looking for someone to engage
17:06
Speaker 1: and brag, a humble brag that you're going to Coachella?
17:09
Speaker 1: Is that what you're doing here? So we went back
17:13
Speaker 1: and forth a little bit, and I was like, you know,
17:16
Speaker 1: baking in the desert like a rotisserie chicken does not
17:22
Speaker 1: seem like a great thing, you know, if you put
17:25
Speaker 1: a VIP wristband on a rotisserie chicken. And so again
17:29
Speaker 1: the guy asked if I'd ever gone, and that triggered
17:32
Speaker 1: what I call the Great Almost Coachella Adventure. I told
17:36
Speaker 1: the story that begins in a audio land long long ago,
17:43
Speaker 1: and it begins with promise, it includes mild paranoia, and
17:48
Speaker 1: ends with a spoiler alert me comfortably not going. So
17:53
Speaker 1: if you've been with the show a long time, like
17:55
Speaker 1: Alf the Alien Opinter or Supermarket Steve, you might remember
18:00
Speaker 1: Terry and England might remember this as well. There was
18:03
Speaker 1: a guy called called the show. There's a guy called
18:04
Speaker 1: in the show not unusual. What was unusual was his claim. Now,
18:15
Speaker 1: I mentioned on last week's podcast, it's very important to
18:21
Speaker 1: know a guy. You got to know a guy, but
18:25
Speaker 1: you gotta know the right guy, and it can't be
18:28
Speaker 1: a bogus guy. So this guy's like, hey, calls up
18:31
Speaker 1: he's I love the show, and I want to help
18:34
Speaker 1: give back to the show, which is sound and we
18:36
Speaker 1: love that. You know that sounds good to me. So
18:39
Speaker 1: these give me the whole rap, right usual nonsense and
18:42
Speaker 1: talking about this, that and the other thing. And I
18:47
Speaker 1: work security at Coachella, and I know a guy. So
18:52
Speaker 1: when you say you know a guy, I assume you
18:54
Speaker 1: know a guy. And in my circle, that's a big deal. Right.
18:59
Speaker 1: In this case, it was trust me bro. I saw
19:03
Speaker 1: it on the internet. So he claimed that he had
19:07
Speaker 1: done some work and he knew some people and he
19:09
Speaker 1: had connections and he could get us VIP passes. Not
19:13
Speaker 1: just passes, mind you, VIP backstage passes, the kind that
19:19
Speaker 1: makes you feel very important until you realize almost anyone
19:24
Speaker 1: else out there can get them. They just have to
19:26
Speaker 1: spend a little money. Now, we weren't going to spend
19:28
Speaker 1: any money. Now. I'm a naturally suspicious person. I think
19:32
Speaker 1: you figured that out listening. I'm a jaded realist, the
19:38
Speaker 1: cynical type individual. I'm gonna show me state of mind.
19:44
Speaker 1: I am, however, a natural lazy person. And if you're lazy,
19:50
Speaker 1: you're you're not exactly out there taking risks. So I
19:54
Speaker 1: don't do things that might involve discomfort if I can
19:58
Speaker 1: avoid them. Certainly don't want uncertainty standing for long periods
20:03
Speaker 1: of time near a bunch of strangers that are higher
20:07
Speaker 1: than a kite, wearing hats that looked like they were
20:10
Speaker 1: assembled from a craft store clearance bin. So I started
20:14
Speaker 1: doing some due diligence, some light reading about Coachella, and
20:22
Speaker 1: I don't want to say research, that's probably not the
20:24
Speaker 1: right word. I was just fussing around, and then I
20:28
Speaker 1: started doom scrolling, and what I found was not that great.
20:35
Speaker 1: There was talk of dust, not just regular dust, desert dust.
20:40
Speaker 1: Now what is desert dust? Desert dust is the kind
20:43
Speaker 1: of dust that doesn't just politely sit on the shelf. Instead,
20:47
Speaker 1: it launches a full scale invasion of your lungs, your eyes,
20:54
Speaker 1: your soul. And so then I'm reading about bathrooms. There
20:59
Speaker 1: were the discussion that did not make things better, words
21:04
Speaker 1: like not enough long lines, extreme heat, Where did my
21:10
Speaker 1: dignity go? Those things kept popping up, how much are
21:15
Speaker 1: porta potties? Why can't they afford more? The number of
21:20
Speaker 1: people that attended the event and the number of people
21:23
Speaker 1: that had access to bathrooms were not the math wasn't mathing.
21:26
Speaker 1: So at this point I think maybe this VIP experience
21:30
Speaker 1: involves me standing in a slightly shorter line while still
21:34
Speaker 1: questioning why I'm even here, and then poof gone, abducted
21:39
Speaker 1: by aliens, vanished, no follow up, no tickets, no explanation,
21:43
Speaker 1: just gonzo see a later sucker and like a magician,
21:48
Speaker 1: except instead of pulling a rabbit out of the hat,
21:52
Speaker 1: he pulled himself out of a conversation, the conversation where
21:58
Speaker 1: he had promised us tickets to Coachella, tucking me coop eddie.
22:02
Speaker 1: I think Roberto was on the show at the time,
22:05
Speaker 1: and so there you go, abracadabra. Now you see it,
22:09
Speaker 1: now you don't. So my Coachella experience ended before it began,
22:12
Speaker 1: which for me is the ideal way to attend most
22:16
Speaker 1: large gatherings. Now that being said, I am fascinated by
22:19
Speaker 1: this concert in Palm Desert Coachella, much like Comic Con
22:24
Speaker 1: in San Diego, and like the humble bleacher creatures at
22:29
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium where these other ballparks, the bleacher bums in Chicago,
22:34
Speaker 1: these things all started out by the people for the people,
22:39
Speaker 1: and they've all been commandeered, and that's the word, not evolved,
22:44
Speaker 1: not matured, not grown up with the times, commandeered, taken
22:48
Speaker 1: over like a cruise ship by people who immediately raise
22:52
Speaker 1: the price of drinks and install a overpriced gift shop.
22:57
Speaker 1: So the origin story matters mostly because it makes the
23:00
Speaker 1: current version feel like a punchline. Let's go in the
23:04
Speaker 1: hot tub time machine, way back to nineteen ninety three,
23:09
Speaker 1: and there they were. Pearl Jam decided that they had
23:12
Speaker 1: had enough of Ticketmaster and it's very creative interpretation of
23:19
Speaker 1: service fee. We talked about that earlier in the pod.
23:23
Speaker 1: So they boycotted Pearl Jam, boycotted Ticketmaster. They staged a
23:27
Speaker 1: show at the Empire Polo Club and proved you did
23:33
Speaker 1: not need the machine to put on a massive event.
23:38
Speaker 1: It was scrappy, rebellious, a middle finger with amplifiers, and
23:44
Speaker 1: that spark led to this guy named Paul and his
23:48
Speaker 1: crew at Golden Voice to launch Coachella. Now, this eventually
23:52
Speaker 1: originally happened in nineteen ninety three with Pearl Jam, but
23:54
Speaker 1: then nineteen ninety nine Coachella began. And when it started,
23:58
Speaker 1: tickets were fifty dollars. Bands like Rage Against the Machine
24:02
Speaker 1: and Beck played and they said, essentially they pay us
24:08
Speaker 1: later we believe in this, which is either noble, incredibly noble,
24:15
Speaker 1: or the last time anyone in entertainment undered the phrase hey,
24:21
Speaker 1: I'm good you help you pay me later without laughing.
24:24
Speaker 1: Like the festival lost money, a lot of money. In fact,
24:29
Speaker 1: Coachella nearly died, which in retrospect, might have preserved its
24:35
Speaker 1: innocence forever, kind of like when a band breaks up
24:39
Speaker 1: before releasing an album. So instead survival happened, and survival
24:46
Speaker 1: led to a sale. They were losing a lot of
24:48
Speaker 1: money by twenty oh one, so eight years after the
24:53
Speaker 1: beginnings of Coachella, the company sold or was sold to
24:59
Speaker 1: a the global entertainment giant, for seven million dollars, which
25:04
Speaker 1: is a lot of money. However, when you consider the
25:07
Speaker 1: amount of revenue, like, oh okay, that is about what
25:12
Speaker 1: Coachella now generates every couple of hours selling wristbands to
25:17
Speaker 1: people who insist there they're just there for the for
25:20
Speaker 1: the vibes, and that's it. That's it, and that's when
25:25
Speaker 1: the slow transformation began. Not overnight. Didn't happen overnight. These
25:28
Speaker 1: things never happen overnight. The only thing that happens overnight
25:31
Speaker 1: is the Ben Mather show. It's more like watching a
25:34
Speaker 1: small coffee shop gradually add more menu items until one
25:40
Speaker 1: day you're paying eleven dollars for something with oat foam?
25:47
Speaker 1: What is oat foam? What is that? I don't know.
25:50
Speaker 1: It's got a good story to it, though, so corporate
25:53
Speaker 1: money does. It doesn't just go kool aid man and
25:56
Speaker 1: knock the wall over and go oh yeah, do that.
26:00
Speaker 1: It redecorates. Suddenly you now have tiers, then more tiers,
26:06
Speaker 1: then tiers that gave birth to other tiers, and then
26:10
Speaker 1: there's the The VIP becomes the ultra VIP, the mega VIP. Well,
26:15
Speaker 1: what's the difference. Well, it's one word, that's the difference.
26:19
Speaker 1: What do I get? I'm not going to tell you
26:20
Speaker 1: what you get, and I'm not sure what I paid for. However,
26:25
Speaker 1: I assume I'm better than you that VIP Right, sponsorships arrive,
26:30
Speaker 1: American Express doesn't just sponsor. It becomes part of the ecosystem,
26:35
Speaker 1: the entire event. There's sections existing because a credit card
26:41
Speaker 1: company decided they should exist. The crowd changes, not entirely,
26:47
Speaker 1: it's it's noticeable. Music festivals used to be about hearing bands,
26:51
Speaker 1: and that was that. Now it's about not about hearing bands.
26:56
Speaker 1: It's about seeing bands and being seen with bands. You
27:00
Speaker 1: have to be seen hearing bands and watching bands, and
27:03
Speaker 1: that's it. And this is where the comic Con comparison
27:08
Speaker 1: really lands. San Diego Comic Con started as a gathering
27:13
Speaker 1: for comic book obsesses, people who actually read comic books,
27:19
Speaker 1: and the people in entertainment are like, well, there's a
27:23
Speaker 1: lot of dudes, mostly dudes, and a few women that
27:27
Speaker 1: go to comic You got to go where the people are.
27:29
Speaker 1: We're in the advertising business. We had to go with
27:31
Speaker 1: the people. So then Hollywood starts showing up. They realize
27:35
Speaker 1: there's a built in audience, and suddenly Comic Con, that
27:40
Speaker 1: little grassroots, buy the people for the people event, just
27:46
Speaker 1: a place to sell some comics, became a place to
27:49
Speaker 1: promote movies about comic books instead of the comic books themselves.
27:54
Speaker 1: And stars would show up and get limo rides and
27:57
Speaker 1: tell stories, and the tale started wagging the dog, the
28:02
Speaker 1: tail started wagging the dog. Coachella followed the same mark.
28:06
Speaker 1: It began as a music festival with an edge, a
28:10
Speaker 1: little grit, a little rebellion. Now it's like a lifestyle
28:16
Speaker 1: brand at this point, influencers who listen I don't blame
28:21
Speaker 1: these people if they're making their money doing this. By
28:24
Speaker 1: the way, I think the Internet is mostly the matrix
28:27
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of manipulation. That doesn't mean there
28:28
Speaker 1: aren't people watching the influencers, just not as many as
28:32
Speaker 1: the numbers would indicate. The numbers a little fuzzy on that.
28:35
Speaker 1: But they're just playing the game, right, They're just playing
28:37
Speaker 1: the game and turned this into a content creation boot camp.
28:44
Speaker 1: The fact that brands pay these people to attend to
28:47
Speaker 1: pose to organically mentioned products in I say air quotes
28:52
Speaker 1: around the word organically and they do all of this
28:56
Speaker 1: wall standing in one hundred and two degree heat, pretending
29:00
Speaker 1: that dehydration is just it's just part of the esthetic.
29:04
Speaker 1: That's all it is. Welcome to the Influencer Olympics twenty
29:09
Speaker 1: twenty six going on right now, Final weekend, Final weekend, Coatchella.
29:16
Speaker 1: You'll see someone holding a drink on these instagrammer accounts.
29:22
Speaker 1: They're holding a drink they didn't pay for. They're wearing
29:25
Speaker 1: clothes they didn't buy. They're promoting a brand they didn't
29:29
Speaker 1: previously know existed until they got a DM all while
29:34
Speaker 1: telling you how authentic the experience is. It's kind of
29:38
Speaker 1: like watching a commercial that insists not a commercial. Well no,
29:44
Speaker 1: it's a commercial. I'm watching something. We know we're not
29:46
Speaker 1: a commercial. But I was watching a different show and
29:49
Speaker 1: then you came on for a minute. That's a commercial.
29:52
Speaker 1: Well no, we're not a commercial. That's it. We're not.
29:56
Speaker 1: And the prices, the prices are what really complete the
30:01
Speaker 1: transformation general admission takes. I looked this up. General emission
30:04
Speaker 1: tickets now run in the hundreds if you can get it.
30:08
Speaker 1: Food costs that. You know that. We know food's more
30:12
Speaker 1: expensive now than it used to be, But food costs
30:14
Speaker 1: what you'd expect if the menu were curated by someone
30:18
Speaker 1: who believes hunger is a luxury experience. It's not exactly
30:22
Speaker 1: the prices you'd pay at Augusta Nashville. Drinks are priced
30:26
Speaker 1: like they come with equity in the festival. They gets
30:30
Speaker 1: some equity. There are villas you can rent for six figures,
30:35
Speaker 1: like what are you doing? Which suggests at some point
30:38
Speaker 1: we stopped attending not me, but you attending Kachella and
30:42
Speaker 1: started investing in Kachella. This is the bleacher seat problem
30:47
Speaker 1: just scaled up. Wearing a flower crown with a selfie stick.
30:55
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the bleachers. The bleachers at Yankee
30:58
Speaker 1: Stadium used to be the cheap seats. You sat there.
31:01
Speaker 1: The bleacher creatures a hard bench. You complained about it,
31:05
Speaker 1: you loved it, you made friends, you created rhythmic chants
31:09
Speaker 1: and things like that. And now even the worst seat
31:13
Speaker 1: in the house comes with dynamic pricing, service fees, and
31:18
Speaker 1: a vague sense that you should have taken out a
31:21
Speaker 1: small loan to afford peanuts. Why do I need a
31:25
Speaker 1: small loan for a peanut? What was once accessible has
31:30
Speaker 1: become exclusive, and I go back to that word, a
31:35
Speaker 1: luxury situation for the experience. What was once organic has
31:40
Speaker 1: become curated, and what started out as rebellious has become
31:45
Speaker 1: a brand. And yet people keep going. Of course they
31:51
Speaker 1: do because they think that this is is worth that
31:56
Speaker 1: your obviously the thing it's worth it is an important
31:58
Speaker 1: bucket list thing in life. And so the thing still works.
32:03
Speaker 1: The music is still there, the spectacle is obviously still
32:06
Speaker 1: at Coachella, and there's a certain human instinct to want
32:12
Speaker 1: to be part of some even if that's something now
32:15
Speaker 1: requires a corporate banner and extra prices on the tickets.
32:21
Speaker 1: A payment plan would be nice. Now I don't say
32:24
Speaker 1: any of this as someone above it. I say it
32:28
Speaker 1: as someone who merely recognizes the patternicity. It's patternicity, baby,
32:34
Speaker 1: that's what it is. You build something to fight the system,
32:38
Speaker 1: the system notices, the system absorbs it, and eventually the
32:44
Speaker 1: thing you built to escape the machine becomes one of
32:48
Speaker 1: its more profitable divisions. Pearl Jam tried to boycott the machine.
32:54
Speaker 1: They did, and Coachella is the Kyle the Pearl Jam.
33:01
Speaker 1: In many ways, Coachella became one of its flagship products.
33:06
Speaker 1: That's not irony, that's business, baby. All right, on that note,
33:11
Speaker 1: we'll get out. We have the mail bag tomorrow. Your
33:14
Speaker 1: questions are answers on the mail bag. We look forward
33:17
Speaker 1: to that. Send them early and often, care of Real
33:21
Speaker 1: fifth hour at gmail dot com. For those of you
33:25
Speaker 1: in the back of the room who are a little
33:28
Speaker 1: slow of hearing or writing things down. Real fifth hour
33:31
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. All letters, no numbers. We'll have
33:35
Speaker 1: the mail bag for you. We'll get to that and
33:38
Speaker 1: we'll do it on the tomorrow podcast. So we'll talk
33:40
Speaker 1: to you. Then. Have a wonderful, glorious Saturday. Remember week
33:44
Speaker 1: from today, we're in the Cincinnati area. Malard meet and
33:47
Speaker 1: greet Newport Kentucky, Strong's brick Oven Pizzeria. Take a bite
33:53
Speaker 1: out of a Mallard Militia.
33:55
Speaker 2: Tell me