Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Signed, Sealed, Delivered

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The Fifth Hour: Signed, Sealed, Delivered · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Kabbooms.
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 soul 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 Wow. The Clearinghouse of
0:19
Speaker 2: Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
0:23
Speaker 2: with Ben Maller starts right now in.
0:29
Speaker 1: The air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler
0:35
Speaker 1: and Danny g Radio will join me over the course
0:38
Speaker 1: of the weekend. He is producing this podcast today, but
0:42
Speaker 1: we are locked in the pod studio early on this
0:47
Speaker 1: Friday morning, back at it after a few rare and
0:51
Speaker 1: appropriate days away back in the podcast sweatshop, and on
0:55
Speaker 1: this podcast we've got signed, sealed and delivered and check
1:00
Speaker 1: the inbox and some other surprises along the way. But
1:04
Speaker 1: we begin with this. So we are recording this live
1:07
Speaker 1: on digital tape, as we like to say, later than normal.
1:12
Speaker 1: And the reason that we are doing that is because
1:15
Speaker 1: Uncle Benny did not want to disturb his nieces that
1:19
Speaker 1: we're sleeping right next door to the remote studio where
1:24
Speaker 1: we do the overnight show from occasionally and also do
1:28
Speaker 1: this podcast. There is an adjacent bedroom which has a
1:33
Speaker 1: very thin wall with bad insulation, and that is where
1:38
Speaker 1: much of the audio magic comes from on this side
1:41
Speaker 1: of the wall. We didn't want to disturb the people
1:43
Speaker 1: on the other side of the wall. As much as
1:46
Speaker 1: I wanted to get in here and bark early in
1:48
Speaker 1: the morning, would have caused a great disruption to the
1:53
Speaker 1: beauty sleep and did not want to upset my twenty
1:57
Speaker 1: something nieces. So nevertheless, here we are. Now the big
2:03
Speaker 1: news of the week. Well, I took a couple of
2:07
Speaker 1: again rare inappropriate days away from the radio show. There
2:10
Speaker 1: was no holdout, There was no hashtag, there was no drama,
2:14
Speaker 1: there was no hostage video that was released. There was
2:18
Speaker 1: no I want to be traded to some other team
2:22
Speaker 1: that did not happen. No, just a pen, a paper,
2:28
Speaker 1: maybe some docu sign new a multi year deal, done
2:33
Speaker 1: the way things used to be done. Quietly. You know.
2:37
Speaker 1: I realized I am in the talk radio business and
2:40
Speaker 1: that we liked the contract holdout in pro football because
2:45
Speaker 1: it's good for business. However, my business done on the
2:51
Speaker 1: down low, the DL, as we used to say, So
2:54
Speaker 1: we did not announce that there were extension talks going
2:59
Speaker 1: on on this podcast or the talk show. In fact,
3:03
Speaker 1: technically I was working without a contract for a couple
3:08
Speaker 1: of weeks. My contract had run out, so at that
3:11
Speaker 1: point I was a free agent, even though I was
3:14
Speaker 1: still getting the microphone time at Fox Sports Radio. But
3:18
Speaker 1: we did not leak the news to a trusted source,
3:22
Speaker 1: not that there's many of those people left trusted sources.
3:25
Speaker 1: There was no campaign on the gram featuring my dog
3:30
Speaker 1: Moxie wearing a T shirt saying pay me. There was
3:34
Speaker 1: none of that. No, no, we signed this new multi
3:39
Speaker 1: year deal. We did it behind closed doors, under the
3:42
Speaker 1: cover of darkness, which, if you know the Malor brand
3:49
Speaker 1: over the years, that's about as on brand as it gets.
3:54
Speaker 1: And so let's be honest here now, there was a
3:57
Speaker 1: point where we thought this would not be happening, where
4:01
Speaker 1: it all might come tumbling down like a wobbly Jenga
4:06
Speaker 1: tower tipping over and hitting the floor, pieces flying everywhere.
4:11
Speaker 1: So let's go back on the hot tub time machine
4:14
Speaker 1: to a sad moment on the history of the show
4:18
Speaker 1: and in a moment where at the time I was
4:21
Speaker 1: at the very top I thought of the mountain. Let's
4:24
Speaker 1: go back to November mid November twenty twenty four, I
4:29
Speaker 1: had returned from a very brief trip to Cansa City,
4:34
Speaker 1: had returned from Kansas City after a VIP weekend. They
4:39
Speaker 1: rolled out the red carpet, had a penthouse, hotel room,
4:44
Speaker 1: the airfare, everything taken care of courtesy of the landing
4:48
Speaker 1: in Liberty, Missouri, the home of the Ben Mallard Chicken
4:52
Speaker 1: fingers and my friend Bob Fesco, the big morning star
4:57
Speaker 1: at the fan in Cansa City. I went in there
5:00
Speaker 1: and you guys showed up from all over the Upper Midwest.
5:04
Speaker 1: We had people come down from Iowa, Nebraska, obviously Missouri
5:07
Speaker 1: where we were doing the broadcast Kansas which is right
5:10
Speaker 1: across the way there, and it was awesome. I had
5:13
Speaker 1: a great turnout. People were very kind. And then I
5:16
Speaker 1: got back and I walked into an audio bloodbath. The
5:21
Speaker 1: company had whacked the great Eddie Garcia steamboat. Willie, my
5:27
Speaker 1: longtime Update anchor, partner in crime after more than two
5:32
Speaker 1: decades at Fox Sports Radio. That's it now. As you know,
5:38
Speaker 1: for all of us, the experience of you a listener
5:41
Speaker 1: me doing the show that was a major, major gut punch,
5:46
Speaker 1: the kind of sudden move that makes you realize yet again,
5:50
Speaker 1: how fragile these gigs really are, the fragility of the
5:56
Speaker 1: business that I have chosen my life's profession. You see,
6:01
Speaker 1: there was no golden watch that was handed out. There
6:04
Speaker 1: was no farewell tour. I don't like those anyway, just
6:08
Speaker 1: a thanks for everything. It's not you, it's us. And
6:13
Speaker 1: then a vanishing act of Eddie that reminded everyone who's
6:21
Speaker 1: involved in the business that you're only secure until you're not.
6:27
Speaker 1: And listen, we have built a freakishly loyal cult audience,
6:34
Speaker 1: which hopefully you're part of. You're listening to the Fifth
6:37
Speaker 1: Hour podcast and I think you're in that. It's my opinion,
6:41
Speaker 1: but you're listening to the radio show and the Witching Hours.
6:47
Speaker 1: However you consume this stuff, it doesn't matter. Right, We
6:51
Speaker 1: started to wonder if our number was next. My deal
6:55
Speaker 1: was up in the summer, just a couple of weeks ago,
6:59
Speaker 1: in July of twenty twenty five. So you do the
7:02
Speaker 1: math on that. You say, well, Eddie and Eddie got
7:05
Speaker 1: let go in November and then my deal is up,
7:10
Speaker 1: and okay, you put two and two together. You're like, well,
7:13
Speaker 1: this isn't good. That's not good. And if Eddie could go,
7:18
Speaker 1: I certainly could go. I'm not giving a lifetime contract
7:23
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So one thing about getting into
7:26
Speaker 1: the industry at a pretty young age you learn at
7:30
Speaker 1: an early point in life that not only life is temporary,
7:37
Speaker 1: but the business you have chosen is temporary. This is
7:42
Speaker 1: not something that you normally do for a long time,
7:44
Speaker 1: certainly not in one place, which makes what has happened
7:49
Speaker 1: to me in my situation even more outrageous and more
7:53
Speaker 1: crazy and all that stuff. Radio, especially talk radio, does
7:59
Speaker 1: not offer long term leases. It does not you You're
8:03
Speaker 1: always month to month, at best your month to month.
8:07
Speaker 1: And while these jobs are hard to get, they're even
8:11
Speaker 1: harder to keep. And if you manage to stick around,
8:15
Speaker 1: as I like to say, you age in dog years,
8:19
Speaker 1: a decade on the air is really like seventy seventy
8:25
Speaker 1: years on the air. Like the format shifts, the executives change.
8:30
Speaker 1: I have had in my time at Fox Sports Radio,
8:32
Speaker 1: I think I've had three or four different bosses. If
8:36
Speaker 1: I did the math on that, yeah, I've had four bosses,
8:38
Speaker 1: four people that could have whacked me at any time.
8:43
Speaker 1: So I've had four executives that I've had to deal with.
8:46
Speaker 1: And then what ends up usually happening is it's not
8:48
Speaker 1: even the executives that you deal with. It's one day
8:52
Speaker 1: some middle manager from San Antonio tells you that your
8:57
Speaker 1: P one numbers are strong, but your P two numbers
8:59
Speaker 1: are soft. The quarter hours just aren't really working out
9:03
Speaker 1: for us anymore, and suddenly you find yourself only doing
9:09
Speaker 1: a podcast, which listen, eventually, I will only do a
9:11
Speaker 1: podcast at some point. That is the way it's going
9:13
Speaker 1: to go. But the point is you're only doing a podcast,
9:18
Speaker 1: and then you're doing ads for a lawnmower blade replacement company.
9:23
Speaker 1: And that's fine. You try to avoid that as long
9:27
Speaker 1: as you can. And we survived for now all yet
9:31
Speaker 1: again and listen were locked in financially for a couple
9:36
Speaker 1: of years to the company. And we're still calling the shots,
9:40
Speaker 1: still sitting in the catbird seat, the watch tower of
9:44
Speaker 1: the overnight, still commandeering the overnight airwaves, like the one
9:50
Speaker 1: man navy, writing the monologues, the bullet points of the monologues,
9:56
Speaker 1: putting the things together for the show as a one
9:59
Speaker 1: man op. But why do we enjoy those crazy nighttime hours?
10:06
Speaker 1: Because for all the pressure, capital pee pressure, the late
10:12
Speaker 1: night slot comes with something that no amount of drive
10:17
Speaker 1: time Molah can buy you freedom. Freedom with a capital F.
10:26
Speaker 1: And we talk about this from time to time, But
10:28
Speaker 1: no one's breathing down my neck at three in the
10:31
Speaker 1: morning to get me to do something that they think
10:37
Speaker 1: needs to be done. Meaning there's no brand consultants that
10:41
Speaker 1: are yelling at you about your tone of that monologue
10:45
Speaker 1: or the pacing of that particular segment, or you left
10:50
Speaker 1: that guy Jed who fled on too long. She was
10:53
Speaker 1: on the air for too long. There's no zoom calls
10:55
Speaker 1: filled with big buzzwords with things like synergy in platform adjacency.
11:02
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means. Right, you don't
11:04
Speaker 1: have that. So those are all positive things. Those are
11:09
Speaker 1: all positive things. You don't have to deal with the
11:14
Speaker 1: rigamarar that a lot of those other shows have, where
11:18
Speaker 1: there's people in management that often feel the need to
11:22
Speaker 1: do something to justify their existence, which often means busy
11:27
Speaker 1: body work. We don't have that. We don't have that.
11:31
Speaker 1: They've given me the freedom of the overnight to go
11:35
Speaker 1: in there and just get weird. Right, you get to
11:39
Speaker 1: be weird, you get to be real, get to talk
11:43
Speaker 1: with yes, you the listener, the audience. You don't have
11:48
Speaker 1: to talk at anyone. I don't have to talk at you.
11:51
Speaker 1: I don't have to sit like I'm on some mountaintop
11:54
Speaker 1: that I'm better than you. And one thing you learn
11:58
Speaker 1: also is that the people listening at the hour where
12:05
Speaker 1: you should be sleep and nothing good happens after midnight,
12:08
Speaker 1: the phrase one or two in the morning, whatever it is.
12:11
Speaker 1: But the people that are listening, the insomniacs, the truckers,
12:14
Speaker 1: the security guards, the cops, the robbers, the fast food workers,
12:19
Speaker 1: the night owls, a few lost souls mixed in there.
12:25
Speaker 1: You're not flipping around, You're not hey, you're not dabbling,
12:29
Speaker 1: You're locked in. You listen. Many of you listen for
12:33
Speaker 1: the entire four hours of the show, or you'll listen
12:37
Speaker 1: for an hour. Most people in daytime radio, you're lucky
12:41
Speaker 1: if you get them for seven or eight minutes. Very
12:45
Speaker 1: rare that they listen that long. And the difference also
12:49
Speaker 1: is you listen overnight and you call in, you become
12:53
Speaker 1: part of the show. You become a character on the show.
12:57
Speaker 1: I go out and do these meet and greets the
13:00
Speaker 1: different towns. I've been all over the United States, from
13:03
Speaker 1: from Maine all the way to Seattle and all over
13:07
Speaker 1: South Carolina. We did one last year in Charleston, in
13:12
Speaker 1: southern California, all over the place. And always somebody will say, hey,
13:17
Speaker 1: what's so and so like, And it's a caller to
13:20
Speaker 1: the show. They're like, Hey, what's that person like? And
13:23
Speaker 1: so that's one of the reasons you don't leave something
13:25
Speaker 1: like this. And sure could I have jumped to a
13:28
Speaker 1: morning show somewhere or afternoon drive and made a lot
13:32
Speaker 1: more money. Absolutely, I'm not getting rich doing this. I'm
13:36
Speaker 1: not and doing a zany show, a zoo show with
13:41
Speaker 1: goofy animal sound effects and giving away wads of cash,
13:48
Speaker 1: or a car wash in Temecula, you know, like I
13:51
Speaker 1: used to do at the mighty six ninety in San
13:54
Speaker 1: Diego back in the day. We could have taken this
13:57
Speaker 1: audience and tried to rebuild something somewhere else. Very difficult
14:03
Speaker 1: to recreate that. We've had opportunities over the years. I've
14:07
Speaker 1: been offered radio jobs in many cities, well three to
14:12
Speaker 1: be exact, since I've been at Fox Sports Radio. But
14:15
Speaker 1: fun equals funds, right because radio at night, and we
14:21
Speaker 1: have preached the bully pulpit, from the bullie pulpit, this
14:25
Speaker 1: and I continue to say this radio at night just
14:28
Speaker 1: means more. It connects deeper, cuts deeper, It sticks in
14:33
Speaker 1: your soul longer. It builds community in a way that
14:39
Speaker 1: daylight radio cannot touch. It just can't. There's a lot
14:44
Speaker 1: more people awake during the day, but there's a lot
14:47
Speaker 1: of options, and people are busy and they're listening with
14:50
Speaker 1: half an year. At night, there's less going on and
14:54
Speaker 1: you're more locked in. And that is why the Malard
14:58
Speaker 1: Militia as we've called it, thanks to Jahattis John and
15:01
Speaker 1: Michigan who came up with that name, the Malard Militia
15:05
Speaker 1: isn't just a catchy name. It's a movement, right, It's
15:10
Speaker 1: the movement is it's a small movement. It's a movement.
15:13
Speaker 1: Got a bunch of diehards across every time zone in
15:18
Speaker 1: the United States. We have an international reach, but we've
15:21
Speaker 1: got people at truck stops and people listening during the
15:26
Speaker 1: day while I'm sleeping in office buildings who treat me
15:32
Speaker 1: like a friend in the room, not just some random
15:36
Speaker 1: voice in the box. What's in the box right? Not that?
15:42
Speaker 1: And what kind of bond? You don't throw that away
15:47
Speaker 1: for some tea time. I'm not even a golfer a
15:51
Speaker 1: golf once a year if I'm lucky. You don't throw
15:54
Speaker 1: that away for some tea time at nine or ten
15:56
Speaker 1: in the morning, and then a What's trend segment? No,
16:02
Speaker 1: So we stayed. We stayed with Premiere Networks, which is
16:05
Speaker 1: still the top of the food chain in syndicated radio.
16:10
Speaker 1: There is no one that does it better than the
16:12
Speaker 1: Premiere Networks. And I recall them my younger days. I
16:16
Speaker 1: was like, that's the gold standard. You want to work
16:18
Speaker 1: in radio and you want to do syndicated radio, you
16:21
Speaker 1: work for a Premiere. They were called Premiere Radio Networks
16:24
Speaker 1: when I started. Now they're just called the Premiere Networks.
16:27
Speaker 1: And then with Fox Sports Radio having started shortly after
16:31
Speaker 1: the network launched, and remember being on and only markets,
16:35
Speaker 1: the test markets. We were doing beta testing at Fox
16:38
Speaker 1: Sports Radio in the early days, and I was the
16:42
Speaker 1: first weekend overnight host on Fox Sports Radio. They were
16:45
Speaker 1: playing recorded programming overnight and they gave me the Friday
16:51
Speaker 1: and Saturday overnight shift. I was, I believe twenty five
16:57
Speaker 1: years old or something like that. I got the overnight
16:59
Speaker 1: show at Fox Sports Radio on the weekends, and we
17:03
Speaker 1: were doing beta testing in Binghamton, New York, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
17:09
Speaker 1: and there were a couple of other small markets, but
17:11
Speaker 1: we were only on in like four or five cities.
17:13
Speaker 1: To start Fox Sports Radio, we had to work out
17:17
Speaker 1: the kinks. We had to give the customer a product.
17:19
Speaker 1: At that time, ESPN Radio was the gold standard. Everyone
17:23
Speaker 1: had listened to that they were at the very top
17:25
Speaker 1: of the food chain. And now you look all these
17:29
Speaker 1: years later, and Fox Sports Radio is the gold standard.
17:34
Speaker 1: It's been that way for years in national syndicated sports
17:37
Speaker 1: talk radio. And so they've given me this stage with
17:41
Speaker 1: a microphone, a moon, and a man on a mission.
17:46
Speaker 1: And so the audio penthouse stays occupied and the show
17:52
Speaker 1: we're not coasting along. We're evolving. We're getting bigger and
17:56
Speaker 1: louder and stranger and hopefully better. Of course you'll be
18:01
Speaker 1: the judge of that. So we may soon be entering
18:06
Speaker 1: our year twenty five. Now I'm a little behind Fox
18:08
Speaker 1: Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio's birthday is August twenty eighth,
18:13
Speaker 1: is when the network launched in two thousand. So I
18:18
Speaker 1: have to wait. I haven't done the math on this.
18:20
Speaker 1: I haven't done the math on this. I'm sure alf
18:23
Speaker 1: or ferg Dog or someone will do the math. So
18:25
Speaker 1: I'm six months in twenty six days. Actually seven months
18:29
Speaker 1: in twenty six days behind that because I started about
18:31
Speaker 1: a month after the network started, so I'm about eight
18:34
Speaker 1: months behind. So I guess the summer. If my math
18:38
Speaker 1: is correct, the summer of twenty twenty six will be
18:42
Speaker 1: my twenty fifth anniversary at the company. But in talk
18:47
Speaker 1: radio terms, that's something like, you know, twenty five years
18:50
Speaker 1: is like eighty two and a half. I did the
18:52
Speaker 1: math on that. The legs still work, the voice still
18:58
Speaker 1: cuts decently, still cuts decently. Occasionally I get my vocal
19:03
Speaker 1: cord shredded from talking so much being a one man
19:06
Speaker 1: act on the overnight. By the end of the show,
19:09
Speaker 1: some of you guys still laugh, some of you still
19:12
Speaker 1: enjoy the show. And more importantly, that red on air
19:15
Speaker 1: light that flashes outside the studio it still means something
19:19
Speaker 1: to me. I was raised on radio. My parents worked
19:24
Speaker 1: crazy hours. My mom ran her own business, and she'd
19:28
Speaker 1: always have the radio on. A little fat Benny would
19:32
Speaker 1: tag with my mom after school and she'd make her
19:34
Speaker 1: deliveries to post offices or whatever, and I was with her,
19:38
Speaker 1: and she always had the radio on. It always meant
19:40
Speaker 1: a lot to her. She always would turn it up
19:42
Speaker 1: for certain segments on the radio. My dad was the
19:44
Speaker 1: same way, grew up listening to Art Bell through Coast
19:49
Speaker 1: to Coast late at night. But my mom, both of
19:51
Speaker 1: them loved, loved radio, and she would turn on in
19:55
Speaker 1: the afternoon at five point thirty. There was a guy
19:59
Speaker 1: named Jim He who did a sports show in LA
20:03
Speaker 1: and she knew I liked sports, and so she turned
20:05
Speaker 1: that on and he had all these goofy sound effects
20:07
Speaker 1: and so I listened to that and I loved it.
20:10
Speaker 1: And there's just something magical about doing it live. Performing
20:13
Speaker 1: live the grid of the overnight, you don't get that
20:18
Speaker 1: same vibe. Not that I don't love doing the podcast,
20:20
Speaker 1: but you don't get that same vibe. And you don't
20:23
Speaker 1: get many second acts in this business. You don't. And
20:27
Speaker 1: so we were able to secure a third or fourth.
20:31
Speaker 1: I don't even know what we're on now. So remember
20:35
Speaker 1: to turn out the lot. But the party's not over.
20:39
Speaker 1: The party's not over. And you leave that radio on
20:42
Speaker 1: and you download the podcast, you listen to that, you
20:45
Speaker 1: give us a good review, and you help keep this
20:48
Speaker 1: show going as long as we can go. And we'll
20:51
Speaker 1: just keep doing it and doing it and doing it
20:53
Speaker 1: and doing it and doing it. And I have no
20:57
Speaker 1: plans on stopping as long as the health is good
21:01
Speaker 1: and life is great and I loved it. We've survived
21:04
Speaker 1: a freaking pandemic together. We can survive just about anything. Now,
21:10
Speaker 1: turning the page on that, you gotta check the inbox.
21:14
Speaker 1: What's in the box? You gotta check the inbox? So
21:18
Speaker 1: he announced your pronouns. He emailed me a few weeks back.
21:23
Speaker 1: His name Will Will the thrill from oh Glaholma, so
21:32
Speaker 1: he said HEREM. I almost didn't open the email. I
21:37
Speaker 1: get inundated. This is a person named blind Scott who
21:42
Speaker 1: is one of my crazy friends. I've known Blind Scott
21:46
Speaker 1: since a man the early days. He was one of
21:48
Speaker 1: the original people that fell in love with the Overnight
21:51
Speaker 1: Show and his many service dogs. Now he can't have
21:55
Speaker 1: a service dog anyway. Scott and I go go way back,
22:00
Speaker 1: and he sends me literally hundreds of emails a week,
22:04
Speaker 1: and as a result, I have to like get rid
22:09
Speaker 1: of him, and it's hard to go through the email.
22:12
Speaker 1: It's a whole flugezy thing. So I get this message
22:15
Speaker 1: from Will from Oklahoma, and as I said, I almost
22:19
Speaker 1: didn't open it, because you know, spam is everywhere other
22:22
Speaker 1: than blind Scott, and I am not in the market
22:27
Speaker 1: for some kind of malware by opening some email I
22:30
Speaker 1: don't recognize, or trying to have someone sell me a
22:34
Speaker 1: discounted timeshare or some off brand pharmaceutical products that will
22:40
Speaker 1: promise to regrow my hair. I'm good on that. I
22:43
Speaker 1: have a nice hat collection. But something in the subject
22:48
Speaker 1: line caught my eye and I'm not sure what it was.
22:52
Speaker 1: I don't think he said longtime listener, first time visitor,
22:56
Speaker 1: although he could have said that. It turns out that
22:59
Speaker 1: Will wasn't just another overnight zombie. No, this was a
23:04
Speaker 1: card carrying member of the Malor militia, a real one,
23:09
Speaker 1: authenticated and essentially from before he was even a teenager.
23:15
Speaker 1: So he said he had been listening to the show
23:18
Speaker 1: since he was the tender age of twelve years old.
23:23
Speaker 1: So at age twelve he found the show. Let that
23:26
Speaker 1: marinate in your brain for a second. For me, I
23:31
Speaker 1: was like, that kind of reminds me of me. I
23:33
Speaker 1: fell in love with radio around that age. I think
23:36
Speaker 1: I started listening. I was a little younger than Will,
23:39
Speaker 1: but right around that age, and I loved it. I loved.
23:42
Speaker 1: I was an introvert and the radio talked to me.
23:45
Speaker 1: It spoke to me, and I didn't have to deal
23:48
Speaker 1: with anyone. I didn't have to talk back to it.
23:50
Speaker 1: It just talked to me. And if I wanted it
23:52
Speaker 1: to shut up, I just turned it off. It was wonderful.
23:56
Speaker 1: So I've always said, and I said this earlier thing
24:00
Speaker 1: dog years and all that. So using that analogy that
24:04
Speaker 1: we used earlier in this fifth Hour podcast, that would
24:07
Speaker 1: make this kid about sixty in radio terms. All right,
24:14
Speaker 1: So he grew up in southern California, my stomping grounds,
24:18
Speaker 1: and would sneak a transistor radio or probably a phone
24:23
Speaker 1: with the iHeart app. You know, I don't know, I'm
24:25
Speaker 1: old under the covers and listen to this overnight circus
24:30
Speaker 1: that we've created. His dear old mom, he said, would
24:34
Speaker 1: scold him for staying up too late to listen to
24:37
Speaker 1: that gas bag. I don't know. His name might start
24:41
Speaker 1: with a B. Maybe that would be me, and hey, listen,
24:46
Speaker 1: I've been called worse. Now. Will told me sadly that
24:49
Speaker 1: his mom had recently passed away from cancer, and now,
24:52
Speaker 1: at twenty one years old, all grown up and married,
24:57
Speaker 1: he was coming back to town. Wanted to visit the
25:01
Speaker 1: studio just to kind of hang out, and I gave
25:04
Speaker 1: you say thanks and all that, just to see the
25:07
Speaker 1: place where this odd little cult show is brewed, a
25:13
Speaker 1: nice warm brew every night. Like the bizarre stew of
25:19
Speaker 1: many hot sports takes and Mallard monologues, goofy sound effects,
25:22
Speaker 1: all the lunacy, all the nonsense, all the wacky callers,
25:26
Speaker 1: all of that. Now you should know that we've had
25:30
Speaker 1: a few bumps in the road with visitor requests. I
25:34
Speaker 1: love opening our doors. I think that's the coolest thing.
25:39
Speaker 1: I still get a kick out of walking into the
25:41
Speaker 1: radio studio now again, I guess I'm getting old boomer,
25:46
Speaker 1: not a boomer. I just feel the energy. I feel
25:49
Speaker 1: the vibe of the microphones and all the legends that
25:51
Speaker 1: have worked in that building. We're in the old Rush Limbaugh,
25:55
Speaker 1: Steve Harvey compound. Just amazing people in broadcasting, some of
26:00
Speaker 1: the greatest of all time, who entertained millions and millions
26:04
Speaker 1: of people, and they sat in those same studios, slaving
26:08
Speaker 1: away in the mic over the microphone. Casey Casem his
26:11
Speaker 1: old studio is down the hall. It's our podcast studio.
26:15
Speaker 1: Like this is just amazing, you know, the ghost of
26:19
Speaker 1: that building, if they could talk. So I want to
26:22
Speaker 1: let you guys in, if your friends, if I know
26:24
Speaker 1: you from the show, and you're called in and see
26:27
Speaker 1: that's one of the things Will told me as a
26:30
Speaker 1: kid caller, and I had forgotten. But he went back
26:32
Speaker 1: to the iHeart archive and sent me the clip that
26:36
Speaker 1: Will had been a kid caller, that he'd fallen asleep
26:41
Speaker 1: as a little kid on the air, and I'd forgotten that,
26:46
Speaker 1: and Will sent me the audio and I kind of
26:48
Speaker 1: refreshed my memories. There you go. So I was like,
26:51
Speaker 1: I kind of let this guy in, come on and so,
26:55
Speaker 1: but we did have some issues now with the visitor request.
26:59
Speaker 1: I don't want to name anyone. However, Mike Leprechaun, you
27:03
Speaker 1: know who you are, Mike. Mike gave us all a
27:06
Speaker 1: mild case of PTSD. I mentioned earlier in this podcast
27:11
Speaker 1: that my contract was coming up in the summer. And
27:14
Speaker 1: about a month before the contract comes up, I get
27:17
Speaker 1: all these messages from management complaining that one of my
27:24
Speaker 1: rogue listeners had shown up into the building and violated
27:28
Speaker 1: the security protocol and you know, going nuts on me.
27:33
Speaker 1: So I say, oh boy, this is not good. So
27:36
Speaker 1: again a little bit of PTSD. We don't need to
27:39
Speaker 1: go in any more detail on that, but let's just
27:41
Speaker 1: say you get burned once by Eleprecaun, you think twice. Still,
27:47
Speaker 1: something about Will's story felt genuine and felt authentic, and
27:52
Speaker 1: so we told him. I said, listen, I don't want
27:56
Speaker 1: to be a douche. You can stop by briefly. It's
27:59
Speaker 1: gonna be a long drive for you. If you're that motivated,
28:04
Speaker 1: you can do it. He said his uncle. His uncle
28:08
Speaker 1: was the guy who had indoctrinated him into the cult
28:13
Speaker 1: of the Overnight Sports Radio World when he was twelve
28:15
Speaker 1: years old. So we said, hey, listen, bring the uncle.
28:19
Speaker 1: Just don't bring a posse, right, don't bring an overnight bag,
28:22
Speaker 1: don't bring a pillow. Don't show up at noon for
28:27
Speaker 1: the midnight visit, or you're going to get pepper sprayed.
28:31
Speaker 1: So Will was raised properly, not by wolves. His mom
28:35
Speaker 1: did a good job. So he followed our instructions. He
28:38
Speaker 1: showed up with Uncle Josh, polite, normal middle aged human being,
28:45
Speaker 1: not wearing a cape or asking to speak to the
28:48
Speaker 1: ghost of Genie and Medford or see if he could
28:52
Speaker 1: channel Jimmy Ray from Tampa Bay. No he didn't. So
28:57
Speaker 1: we gave them a very brief walk behind the scenes tour.
29:01
Speaker 1: And I say very brief because it was in the
29:03
Speaker 1: middle of a stop set and I had to get
29:05
Speaker 1: back behind the microphone. Nothing glamorous unless you consider the
29:10
Speaker 1: stack of ancient show rundowns off to the side or
29:14
Speaker 1: some stale vending machine leftovers on the Smurf kitchen glamorous.
29:18
Speaker 1: So he met the crew. He and Josh met the crew,
29:22
Speaker 1: saw the magical on air light and the various buttons
29:26
Speaker 1: and gadgets in the studio. We snapped a few photographs,
29:30
Speaker 1: We chatted for a couple of minutes, and then that's it,
29:33
Speaker 1: he laughed. That's it. That was the visit. It wasn't long,
29:37
Speaker 1: it was short. It was sweet. It did stick with me, though,
29:41
Speaker 1: because here's this kid, and he's not a kid anymore.
29:45
Speaker 1: He's all growing up. Who stayed up late with a
29:50
Speaker 1: cheap in my head, a cheap radio and just go
29:54
Speaker 1: with my version of the story and listen to me
29:57
Speaker 1: ramble into the void of the darkness night. And now
30:00
Speaker 1: he's all grown, he's working the dreaded day shift in Oklahoma.
30:04
Speaker 1: He's still listening, still connected and granted he's a podcast guy.
30:11
Speaker 1: He told me he listens to the podcast, which is understandable. Nevertheless,
30:16
Speaker 1: still loyal and that's awesome. And people think no one
30:20
Speaker 1: listens to the overnight radio. Why did he do the
30:23
Speaker 1: Overnight show? They think it's the like a graveyard shift,
30:27
Speaker 1: a wasteland of insomniacs and weirdos yelling at the clouds.
30:32
Speaker 1: And while we get a lot of that, we get
30:34
Speaker 1: a lot of the angry old guy like Jerome and
30:37
Speaker 1: Charleston who just calls up to complain about everything, and
30:40
Speaker 1: so some of that is true. Every once in a while, though,
30:45
Speaker 1: one of those weirdos turns out to be just a
30:47
Speaker 1: cute kid who's growing up and wants someone to listen to,
30:53
Speaker 1: something to listen to, and finds the show and it's
30:56
Speaker 1: a companion as a background soundtrack in this case to
31:02
Speaker 1: his life. Now, did it make me feel a little bit,
31:05
Speaker 1: a little bit and a little like the godfather of
31:10
Speaker 1: this strange nocturnal family, the mal Or Militia that we
31:14
Speaker 1: have built up over the years. So to Will, thank you, pal,
31:18
Speaker 1: it was great to meet you. Will wants me to
31:21
Speaker 1: do a Malor meat greet in Oklahoma. I've been to
31:23
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City before. Now Will lives in a small town
31:27
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma and not in Oklahoma City. So if I
31:31
Speaker 1: do end up there, will I promise we'll do a
31:33
Speaker 1: malor meat greet. But I did want to think you're
31:35
Speaker 1: not just for listening, but for reminding me yet again,
31:39
Speaker 1: why this thing we do in the middle of the night. Well,
31:44
Speaker 1: ninety nine point seven percent of the population of sleeping
31:48
Speaker 1: other than Alf and ferg Dog and mister nice guy
31:51
Speaker 1: and a few others still matters right now again, Will
31:56
Speaker 1: you got to get some sleep during the nighttime hours
31:59
Speaker 1: because you work the dreaded day shift. You've got a
32:01
Speaker 1: family to support. You're all married, So welcome to adulthood,
32:05
Speaker 1: and thank you, thank you, thank you. Will and on
32:11
Speaker 1: that we will put the baby to bed. We'll have
32:14
Speaker 1: some new podcast all weekend and get you caught up
32:18
Speaker 1: on the schedule for next week as well. So thank
32:22
Speaker 1: you for listening and supporting in the podcast. You can
32:24
Speaker 1: email me if you get this in by tonight, you
32:29
Speaker 1: can email me a question for the mail bag and
32:32
Speaker 1: send that in care of what that would be the
32:35
Speaker 1: Real Fifth Hour Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com
32:41
Speaker 1: and put name and city, name and city in the
32:47
Speaker 1: headline on that Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com,
32:52
Speaker 1: and your comments and questions we'll be read in the
32:57
Speaker 1: Sunday mail bag, but we'll have new pods all weekend.
33:00
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful, wonderful rest your Friday. Thank you for
33:04
Speaker 1: allowing me to put this up a little bit later.
33:06
Speaker 1: It's an afternoon podcast on a Friday, but that's all good.
33:11
Speaker 1: That's all good, So we'll catch you out tomorrow and
33:16
Speaker 1: aloha all that wonderful stuff. And as Danny says later,
33:22
Speaker 1: skater now asta pasta, gotta murder, I gotta go