May 16, 2026 • 44 mins
Ben channels the spirit of Mark Twain on a wild Saturday edition of the Fifth Hour Podcast, proving once again that facts should never ruin a perfectly ridiculous story. From a cloak-and-dagger “pastry meetup” that turned into a full-blown emergency intervention with a Willie Wonka-style entrance, to tales of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow flexing historic power in Boston, this episode zigzags through the chaos of the 2026 Worcester Maller Meet & Greet. Add in Mike the Leprechaun’s one-man variety show, a sea of colorful humanity, and enough awkward social encounters to fill a documentary, and you’ve got another unforgettable Maller travel log.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kabooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mallor,
as we hang out together on this Saturday, the sixteenth
day of May.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
The Mallard travelogue continues. Not much to talk about. We
had a couple of NBA games on Friday night and
a real doozy. What a way to go out putting
up a fight. The Minnesota Timberwoles boy chance to force
(01:03):
a Game seven in the NBA playoff series there at
Target Center, and the Minnesota basketball team fell behind by
as many as thirty seven. They didn't trim the lead
down to thirty as San Antonio mollywopped the Minnesota basketball team.
(01:25):
Good afternoon, good evening, and good night. The Timberwolves never
led in that game, not a second at home, and
they go down last night as it wasn't all though
Wemby show it was a castle in the sky as
(01:45):
a Stefan castle there with thirty two points to lead
the way, everyone shooting lights out for the Spurs, So
they move on to play Oklahoma City in a matchup
it's being marketed as an matchup. From a pure basketball standpoint,
it is an epic matchup. From a media market standpoint,
(02:07):
it is not an epic matchup. And then you had
the Cleveland Cavaliers, an opportunity for the Cavs at home
to close it out, wrap things up, take on the
Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, and of course Cleveland
completely malfunctioned in this game, and they did it in
(02:29):
many ways. In the second half. At halftime it was
a three point game, the Pistons leading fifty four to
fifty one, and in the second half at home, a
chance to rubber stamp your ticket go to the next round.
You got the full experience. James Harden and Donovan Mitchell
combined to shoot five of eighteen in the second half,
(02:53):
and James Harden had a bunch of turnovers as he
always does. And the Cavaliers and the Pistons will have
a Game seven, the winner gets a date into the
Final Four. The Cavaliers did not lead in the second
half of that game. They only briefly led early on
in the game. That was it. So that's the NBA.
(03:16):
Enough of that, you didn't tune into this podcast for that.
We get back to the meat and potatoes on this Saturday.
We billboard this as the Intervention disguise as a pastry
meet up, the Raccoon Operating heavy Machinery, and more. But
we begin with this as we continue our in depth
(03:37):
team coverage of what was a magically delicious trip to
the Commonwealth and beyond. So there are certain streets if
you've not spent a lot of time in Boston, there
are certain streets on the North End of Boston that
feel less like roads and more like old secrets, Like
you got dropped out of a time machine and you're
(03:59):
in this place that goes way way, way way back. Now,
I've not been to the truly historic sites of the world,
the pyramids in Egypt, or spots around the Middle East
and in Europe that are just ridiculously old. I've not
been there. So for me, this is as close as
I've been to anything like this. The north end of Boston.
(04:19):
The brick building kind of lean inward a little bit,
feels like it's either the back lot at Universal Studios, Hollywood,
or you're somehow far far away from reality. So the
buildings are leading in. The alleyways are very narrow, built
for horses. The cobblestone shines under the street lights like
(04:42):
wet teeth, and even the air feels just a little
different there, certainly after midnight, little salty cold. It's got
traces of garlic, and there's rain, water and bad decisions
and all that. This part of our story begins on
(05:04):
one of those streets. My wife and I had just
returned from Maine, as you know from previous episodes of
this podcast, namely yesterday. So we'd returned from Maine after
a long day of driving down nine to ninety five
surviving New England traffic circles enough lighthouse tourism to qualify
(05:27):
for honorary fisherman status. So we had one mission when
we got back to Boston. That mission palm Chicken palm, simple, noble, achievable, right,
except every spot we wanted to go to was closed
rejected by the gods of Italian cuisine. So we drifted
(05:51):
instead into Bova's Bakery. It's always been a staple when
I come to Boston. I always loved the North End.
I love the Italian food. I love Bova's Bakery. So
that is where tired people and creatures of the night
and a lot of drunk college students gather under the
fluorescent lights to make very questionable dessert decisions. Now they
(06:12):
also have salty food. They have different regular food dishes
you can get, but it's a baker, it's a big
So you haven't truly lived until you've starved yourself and
it's late at night. You're dying to eat, and you're
kind of hanging out there, and you're staring into the
bakery case at eleven thirty, and you've convinced yourself that
(06:37):
a cream puff is a practical thing to eat at
this time. So there we stood outside Bova's with pastry
boxes in hand. The North End. It's really quiet, considering
you know this is a bustling part of town, or
whether it wasn't that bad, and anyway, this is when
(06:59):
I made the mistake. I shouldn't have done it. I'd
like to confess to you right now. I wish I
hadn't done it. I did it. It's done. I can't
take it back. So I'm standing there and I clicked
open the what you might call it on my phone,
and it's got the little like the camera like, it's
orange purple. It's the Instagram thing. I clicked open Instagram
(07:23):
and immediately, boom, boom goes the dynamite. I'm getting hit
up with messages everywhere from blind Scott Ah. Blind Scott
doesn't do one message, Blind Scott doesn't do two messages.
Blind Scott believes in carpet bombing your messenger device. Now,
if you're unfamiliar with blind Scott, and I don't know
(07:45):
how you could be unfamiliar with blind Scott, imagine a
combination of a sports talk radio caller, a wandering philosopher,
and a smoke detector with a very low battery. You
know that, sup chirp chirp, Yeah, that thing. You never
quite know when he's going to go off, but eventually
(08:10):
blind Scott will go off. And lately blind Scott has
gone sideways a myriad of threats, some of them very angry,
deep dark stuff enough for people, and you know who
you are, reached out to me. You were genuinely concerned
about my well being and having to deal with blind Scott.
(08:35):
And it was to the point where you start wondering
if someone's driving with two wheels off the road, if
you know what I mean. Now, normally the grown up move,
the smart move, would have been just to ignore these
messages on Instagram and focus in on the beautiful people
(08:57):
who are on there to make money by shaking what
their mamas gave them instead, against every survivable instinct. I
possess every survival instinct that I've been taught when I
was a cub Scout and a boy scout. I responded, ah, yes,
another tremendous idea, said the dry little voice that appears
(09:19):
whenever I ignore common sense on purpose. So I responded,
I told Scott, Hey, we are outside Bova's. If he
wanted to stop by quickly, within seconds, right now, question mark.
So the speed of the response was rather unset, like
(09:39):
he'd been hiding behind a trash barrel somewhere on the
side of Bova's, refreshing the app waiting for me to
walk in, And of course I did. I wrote back.
I said, yes, I wrote back, but we're leaving soon.
I was like eyes make this happen. That's it out.
So then I got silence, and we recorded a quick
(10:02):
little hype video for the Malad militia. Excited about being
in Boston, wrapped up the pastries and put them in
the bag, prepared to head back to the hotel. However,
now there was this strange feeling hanging in the air,
like we'd accidentally scheduled a global summit meeting nobody fully
(10:28):
wanted and nobody fully understood. It's the cloak and dagger
part of the story. And so here I am standing there,
waiting in the North End at night, and when you're
on that part of Boston, the North End, it just
does things to your imagination, or at least it did
(10:51):
to me. It could have been whatever I was eating
or drinking at the time. The streets feel older than
America itself because they are older than America itself. Somewhere nearby,
Paul Revere once rowed through, warning the British were coming.
The British were coming. Though personally I think history under
(11:12):
sold Israel Bissel, the other writer who covered something like
three hundred miles that night and got absolutely no poetry
written about him. And this is one of those things
in life, and it's a lot clearer now because of
social media. Even back in the seventeen hundreds. Even back
(11:36):
in the seventeen hundreds, you had the haves and the
have nots. And I look at it like the Willis
Reid game. The Willis Reid game where he played on
a broken leg is called the Willis Reed game. Willis Reid,
I think, scored one or two baskets, played a couple
of minutes in the first quarter, and that was it.
It was the Walt Clyde Fraser game. Nobody calls it
(11:57):
that Walt Clyde Fraser is the reason the Knicks the
Lakers that day. He was the star of the show.
He just doesn't get the credit. And much like Israel
Bissel does not get the credit, Paul Revere got the
credit and the reason. And this is just a great
metaphor for life. The reason is because the name Israel
Bissel did not work for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the famous
(12:23):
poet laureate who wrote the poet about the Paul Revere,
and that the name works. It's a much better name,
Paul Revere. It flows off the tongue than Israel Bissel.
And so that's a tough break. That's seventeen seventy five
branding Israel Bissel learning the lesson. You gotta have the
right branding or it's not going to work. Anyway. Back
(12:45):
to the story, So we're standing there under a dim
street light and I hear something and at first it
sounded like some metal scraping the stone. Then I heard
a thud, and then another and out of the darkness.
Now you gotta imagine here. It's after midnight, it's dimly lit,
it's a little damp, it had rained a few hours earlier,
(13:08):
and way down the cobblestone street appeared this shadowy figure.
It wasn't walking straight. It looked to be the silhouette
of a human, and it was swaying. It was limping
a little bit and stopping every few steps. And I'm
looking off into this and I'm like, oh boy, what
do we got here? You know? My wife looked at me,
(13:29):
I looked back at her, and neither of us spoke.
We just kind of nodded. The figure moved a little closer,
a little closer you could kind of see a little
bit under the weak yellow glow of those street lights,
and suddenly I could make out what appeared to be
a cane, not a candy cane, an actual cane. Then
(13:53):
the limp became more dramatic, too dramatic. That is when
I realized what was happening in front of my eyes,
on a pretty empty part of the street, right across
from Povia's Bakery. Blind Scott was attempting the notorious Willy
(14:14):
Wonka entrance. Not the creepy remake. I'm talking about the
og Gene Wilder version, the famous fake limp before the
surprise Somersault. Only this was not exactly Broadway quality. This
was not Tinseltown quality. At one point, blind Scott's cane
became jammed between a couple of things on the street
(14:38):
I don't know if it was a pothole or a
couple of cobblestone, and nearly launched him headfirst into the
colonial infrastructure. His body tilted dangerously forward, like a refrigerator
falling downstairs, and for a split second, I honestly thought
I was about to witness a full wipeout directly in
(15:00):
front of the Paul Revere House gift shop, or at
least close enough. Plausibly, somehow, some way, impossibly well blind
Scott regained balance much like Gene Wilder, barely A passing
couple froze and watched the whole thing unfold like the
(15:23):
way tourists are supposed to watch these things, stumbling like
they stumbled onto some kind of weird outdoor theater show.
So blind Scott finally reached us. He was a little
out of breath, looking both exhausted and very proud of himself,
like a man who had just crossed enemy lines, carrying
(15:44):
a secret government document and half a canoli. And that's
when things got serious right around here, because this wasn't
really a social visit. There were ulterior motives. This was
an intervention disguise is a pastry meet up, if you will.
(16:05):
Blind Scott, as we had talked about, had spent many,
many months spiraling online, spiraling online, threatening to docks me,
saying insane things, insane to the membrane about murder, and
going into very dark territory that stopped being funny a
(16:27):
long long time ago. So right there on this quiet
Boston side street, surrounded by old brick buildings in cream
puff boxes, we had a cloak and dagger conversation, a
real one heart to heart man demand. I told Scott calmly,
(16:51):
I was firm. I said enough is enough. I said,
knock it off, just be nice. This is not healthy
is It's not who you are. I gave blind Scott
an extra large helping of tough love. And the thing
that really surprised me is that blind Scott listened. He
(17:14):
actually listened. He did, although midway through this conversation he
wandered into the street and nearly got hit by a
car and killed, which honestly felt on brand enough that
nobody even reacted immediately other than me. Then came the
plot twist that I did not have on my bingo card.
(17:35):
I thought of how bad this could have gone. I thought, well,
Scott might bring a weapon, and as well, at least
he can't see where he's shooting. And I thought, well,
that'd be good. I'd be okay most likely, But I
can't guarantee the safety of the people around me and
my wife, and that scared me a little bit. But
blind Scott listened to what I had to say. He apologized,
and it wasn't like a joking apology. It was not
(17:55):
a half hearted apology. It was just a genuine, if
the apology, and he said he had been struggling with
some of his demons, which was rather obvious, you didn't
need say it. Said he had been off his meds,
and that he knew that he had crossed the line
and he was just trying to get attention, and a
(18:16):
lot of stuff like that, And we had a very
good conversation. We tried to encourage blind Scott to get
the help that he needs. The state of Massachusetts would
be more than happy to help blind Scott, and you know,
he was like, well, I don't really like to go
out and get the help I need and all that stuff. Anyway,
this is suddenly this whole bizarre scene, the midnight mallord
(18:38):
meeting that was not planned, the shadow in the street,
the pastry diplomacy. It stopped feeling ridiculous for a moment.
It just felt human. It just felt human. And then
Scott shuffled back into the Boston Knight, disappearing down the
cobblestone the same way he arrived, like a mystery no
(19:00):
nobody could fully explain. And we would see Scott again
the following day. And we now move ahead in our
broadcast and get back to our Malar mini series on
our regularly scheduled adventures in and around the Commonwealth and beyond.
So the Worcester part of the trip we talked about
(19:21):
Boston on the Friday Pod. The Worcester part of the
trip was supposed to begin with me throwing out the
first pitch at Polar Park. That was the plan, the
best laid plans of mice men and middle aged gas bags.
So plans are adorable. Plans are what you make before
New England weather laughs in your face and dumps a
(19:45):
swimming pool on your rental car. So instead of bounding
out of bed on Saturday like Rocky Boalboa, charging up
the steps ready to throw some haymakers, I became a
hostile negotiator with my hotel pillow. I was very tired
from the event on Friday and the travel and not
(20:06):
getting much sleep at all. And I don't normally get
a lot of sleep, but usually one day a week
I'll get a firm asleep, And so I'm flipping the
pillow and I'm repositioning my body in bed, and I'm
checking my phone. Said, well, maybe the radar was wrong
and the game won't get rained out, and all that well,
kept raining more rain, biblical rain, rain, that makes you
(20:27):
wonder if a guy named Noah is somewhere warming up,
building out an arc of Dunkin donut boxes and some
old Red Sox programs, and is hurting up Lucky the
Leprechaun and Wally the Green Monster and getting everyone together,
pat Patriot and all that. And I was, I was
(20:48):
worn out. Listen, it happens. The kind of tired your
socks feel heavy, the kind of tired you're near your knees.
They just kind of file a bit of a grievance
with the rest of you. And so we just said,
you know what, we'd stayed late after the Mighty Squirrel
gathering because my wife, after the event, she said, well,
(21:10):
I want to go out and get some food. And
since I was somebody who'd nobly refused to eat at
the tap room, there not my eating window. I do
this fugesy fasting thing, and on vacation rare and appropriate.
You can eat a little later, eat fast a little less,
live your life, enjoy your life. And so we wandered
(21:32):
off into the Boston Seaport looking for a late night meal,
and much like we found the other night on the
North End, not a lot there. The seaport is fascinating,
though it's better during the day. It's Boston's version of
a glow up story. Used to be shipping docks, rough trade,
(21:52):
maritime hustle. Now it's art galleries, luxury skyscrapers, condo buildings,
influencers wandering around pretending they just discovered espresso, martinis and
all that, and the old shipping area reinvented into a
mix of tourism and also, of course a great spot
(22:16):
for a middle aged radio host to convince themselves that
they are buying something that counts as fitness by these
different stores. They a lot of fitness athletics stores and
things like that. So at one point I read this
the other day, at one point in twenty sixteen, they
(22:38):
discovered an actual shipwreck, like a real shipwreck, buried underground there.
Imagine that a bunch of construction Jabbroni's are out there working.
They're digging in. Suddenly they find a boat, and not
just any boat, a boat from the eighteen hundreds underneath
(22:58):
modern Boston. And this was about a decade ago, which
is also roughly how I feel every few weeks when
I stand up too quickly, I feel like I have unearthed,
a relic from the past. I'm like, how did that
get there? And oh, my back, my neck, my back
and my neck and the whole thing. But yeah, I
(23:20):
guess you can say a couple times a month, I
am an ancient wreck beneath civilization. So we ended up
at this place called Stubbies. I'd never been to Stubbies,
didn't know much about Stubbies. Tremendous steak and cheese sandwich.
It's possible I was just hungry, but I really enjoyed
the meal. Tremendous, greasy in all the right ways, heavy
in the right way. It sat in my stomach like
(23:43):
a weighted blanket, which encourages sleep. Then came the long
zombie walk back to the hotel through the drizzle of
the seaport while my body quietly threatened litigation against me.
So now it's very very early on Saturday morning and
(24:04):
we're there. We get to the hotel and we were
greeted shortly after by thunder wind, sideways rain, just the
general mood of a Viking funeral. Felt like you were
at a Viking funeral, not a Minnesota Viking funeral. Because
we were in Boston and so we slept and deeply aggressively,
(24:25):
the kind of sleep where you wake up confused about geography,
unsure what year it is, wondering if your room key
is still going to work or if society had collapsed,
and you slept right through it. So finally, sometime later
in the afternoon we rose from hibernation mode. That's what
(24:48):
you do. And there is a very specific sound that
people around my age make when they wake up soar
in a hotel bed. It's notuage, it's not even communication.
It's just noises. It's a grunt, it's a groan, it's
bones auditioning for the percussion section of the band. I
(25:12):
made that sound. Then came what is the mandatory, mandatory
and ceremonial full body stretch, which in my case looked
less like stretching and more like an inflatable tube man
outside a tire shop trying to survive high winds. And
so we tossed some clothes on, and then it was
(25:36):
time to go to the lobby to get the rental
car and head off to Wooster. And so we got
the gang together and we said, we're gonna go out
the worst, the big, the big event is taking place,
and so we got Coop his wife, Lorena my wife,
(25:56):
and away we went. Now I'd never been to Worcester
before I knew about it. Of course, I'd heard about Worcester.
My grandfather used to tell me stories about the Worcester
Springfield area, an area that he lived a lot of
his youth in As a kid. Growing up, my Yiddish
loving Bobo treated Central Massachusetts like it was a mythical homeland.
(26:19):
And to me, Worcester was not just a city. It
was a concept, a spiritual location, a place where men
wore jackets in July complained professionally. They call it the
Heart of the Commonwealth. That's what the slogan is, and
it sounds less like a slogan, more like a prescription medication,
(26:40):
Heart of the Commonwealth. Ask your doctor if Worcester is
right for you. But the city has legitimate history, and
I love history. Revolutionary War supply depot Worcester. First public
reading of the Declaration of Independence that seems like a
big deal in Massachusetts happened in Worcester. Birthplace of the
(27:03):
mass produced Valentine's Day card in Worcester. First public park
in America was not in Boston or New York or Philadelphia.
It was in Worcester, the second largest city in New England.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. And yet
if you tell people in Boston you're driving out to Worcester,
(27:23):
they react like you announced you're joining a traveling in
a circus. And of course we were. We do it
overnight radio. So we headed down the mass Pike in
the rain. And when I say we, as I said
to me, the wife Coop his wife and Lorena slow
and study and I didn't get a speeding ticket, no accident,
(27:46):
which for a Los Angeles driver operating in New England
weather is basically worthy of a championship parade or at
least a medal. At least a medal. And when you
drive down the mass Pike from Boston out to Worcester,
you pass all of these landmarks. Finnway's Green Monster, the
Celtics practice facility, the r Box Center, the Warrior Ice Arena,
(28:11):
the home of the Boston Bruins practice facility, the New
Balance headquarters. It's a sports tourism buffet every few miles,
every few miles, another reminder that New England people take
sports just a little more seriously than the rest of us,
and certainly more seriously than vitamins. They loved the sports
(28:33):
more than the vitamins. So we got out to bold
Lands a little late, paid for parking because apparently Massachusetts
believes that parking spots should cost the same as beachfront property.
I took a couple of photos outside to hype things
up on social media, and then we headed in. We
made our trip in and immediately, immediately the place was jumping'
(28:58):
it was buzzing'. Bowllands had the perfect Irish pub energy.
Could tell why Mike the Leprechaun had picked this place. Loud,
it was welcoming, It was busy, yet not totally chaotic.
You had live music with a house band echoing throughout
the building. The pints were flowing, people talking over each other.
(29:23):
It was a lot going on in a lot of
those thick New England accents where every sentence sounded like
both compliment and a threat at the same time. How
can you make that sound like a compliment and a
threat at the same time. How does one do that?
I don't know, asked the guy over there. And our
setup was in the back, so we went to the
back and there were signs welcoming us, they had the
(29:46):
malard themed food spread. Mike the Leprecaun's kids had done
a great job decorating. Even though they hate the show,
we thank them for their generosity to help us out.
So we had malard themed food spread out like a
Bizarro radio host roast banquet. It was simultaneously flattering and
also slightly concerning. Anytime someone names food after you, there's
(30:11):
a risk involved. There's absolutely risk involved. And I had
been getting cancelation emails all day. That was another thing.
As we walked in, I was like, oh boy, oh man.
I the messages. The theme was Hey, why wanted to go?
But my wife said no, and I I gotta you know,
I gotta listen to her, and I I gotta save
(30:31):
that for for football. And it's not football. Kid got sick.
Kid had a soccer tournament or a softball tournament. You know,
two states over dog ate something. I'm not sure what.
We've got a monitor of the dog. My aunt fell down.
I don't know how bad it is. We might have
to take her to the emergency room. Three words too
much rain. Okay, got that t m R. Too much rain.
(30:54):
The aliens have landed. Therefore, I can't go meet you. Okay,
sounds good. Everybody you had a discuse everybody, So naturally
I started getting that kind of flop sweat thing going on,
spiraling down my forehead. That's what I do. I catastrophize professionally.
(31:19):
I'm basically the Mozart of irritation and irrational irritation and concern.
And even though I'm now looking at what appears to
be a very lively building, what if nobody comes, what
if it's awkward, what if Mike the Leprechaun stage is
a coup. However, these are hardy New England people. You
(31:41):
travel twenty five hundred miles and they will show up
and they will show out. And I'm happy to report
that Wooster absolutely showed up and absolutely showed out. They
rolled out the Wu Socks carpet for me. The room
became this incredible stew of humanity, all shapes and sizes,
(32:02):
all ages, young, old, in the middle, loud extroverts, introverts,
the quiet, the stylish, the disheveled. Everyone right there, Attractive
people mixed with people like me who looked like we
were assembled from spare parts behind a pep boys, And
it felt like somebody emptied an entire sports radio message
(32:27):
board if they still have those things into one room
and added beer. And then Mike the Leprechaun he decided,
you know, I'm gonna hijack the thing because I'm Mike
the Leprecaun. He did, of course, he did. What a character,
this guys, what a character. So at some point Mike
literally booted the Irish Band off stage. It would appear
(32:48):
this is what I'm being told, so he could do
what can only be described as a one man variety show.
I'm talking a monologue, song, jokes, chaos. It was like,
if you're old enough to remember public access television, if
public access television had consumed several energy drinks and fallen
(33:13):
into the part of YouTube where nobody watches any of
those videos, yet they are all saved. That was the
part the Irish Band looks stunned, like deeply concerned. Mike
the Leprechaun was totally oblivious. He was obtuse to what
was going on, and he was thriving. I watched some
of this unfold the way that a visitor to the
(33:36):
zoo would observe a raccoon operating heavy machinery. Equal parts fascinated, concerned,
and unable to look away. And then came the Conga line,
the Conga, the parade of characters. We had Ernesto from
the Bay Area who returned for Night two wearing this
(33:58):
smooth Socks jersey. Because Ernesto, he's all in and this guy,
he's got to have quite the memorabilia collection. I love
Ernesto's big Niner guy. He's my favorite Niner fan of today,
along with Jay Scoop and a few others. But Ernesta's
wonderful because he's the guy that will he'd be willing
(34:18):
to put on the team gear for wherever he happens
to be because he wants to be part of the
mood of that event. And it was great to see
Ernesto and his Wusox jersey. Will the p One arrived
again from he was at the Boston event. Will's the
guy performing good deeds for his family there, helping out
(34:39):
like someone who's kind of like a batman of sports talk.
You had Bill from Boston who showed up rocking the
paper boy cap. Brian from Worcester, a fellow member of
the tribe. As we had a brief conversation. We're both
culturally Jewish, spiritually sarcastic, and that was a hilarious conver station.
(35:01):
One of those naturally funny people who doesn't realize he's
funny and all that. So I enjoyed chatting with Brian.
Christian rolled in with He had a tremendous mascot shirt
on which I liked a lot. Then there was Brian
and Mikayla, who showed up as the perfect couple prototype.
(35:22):
She teaches fifth grade and she was full of energy
bouncing around that everyone was having some fun. Santallo and
she was very polite to everybody, were kind and he
apparently has a doctor at Brian in sarcasm, which I appreciate.
Wonderful people, as Brian said on social media, the silent majority,
(35:44):
which is really what Brian is. Brian's a big fan
of the show and the podcast and all that, and
he's not an active contributor in terms of content. That
there he was, he and his lady, and it was
it was great, the silent majority. They were there. But wait,
there's more. We had Chris from the Gluten Free Bakery,
(36:05):
and I got to tell you about that. Let me
tell you something. This woman deserves some kind of metal,
or at least a faux golden ticket. So I believe
she works at Duke's, which is a gluten free bakery.
She drove an hour in the rain after she had
worked a twelve hour shift baking these gluten free treats. Now,
(36:26):
that is dedication, that is commitment. That is also behavior
suggesting caffeine played a significant role in this event. But
it was so sweet. She's a big fan, and she
didn't have a lot of time to hang out with us.
She obviously needed to go get her rest, but she
made sure to come by. We took a photo, We
said our hellos, and small talked a little bit and
(36:46):
it was just just absolutely wonderful to meet Chris, and
I thank you for listening. Was really sweet of you
to make the effort. I mean there were people that
live right down the street that didn't make the effort,
So I mean the fact that you drove that far
was really cool. Matt from Salem works overnight in the
shipping world, moving boxes through the night like some exhausted
(37:07):
maritime elf doing his thing, and he's a good dude there.
He stopped by. We talked about Salem and the fact
we had been in Salem the day prior. Danny DeVito,
not the actor, not the actor though honestly at this
point who knows, arrived looking sharp, fashionable. He had this
(37:28):
all black ensemble and this nice chain on. The man
travels with a posse because he's Dan and DeVito why not.
Had his brother there and some other folks. Then there
was Jerry from Rhode Island, our Taylor Swift. Jerry from
Rhode Island, absolute rockstar. She commandeered some family members mainly
(37:48):
her sister, to drive her through some awful weather just
to attend. She brought gifts all height How sweet is that?
Brought some energy, brought some positivity. Now. I had met
Jerry in Los Angeles during the twenty eighteen World Series
in La La Land, back before my exile because of
Sho Hail Tani and Jerry was invited. She had a
(38:12):
VIP trip out to Los Angeles for a Dodger Red
Sox game and there she was, yet again smiling through
the rain and the pain and all that. And she
brought some nice little gifts from the Ocean State, which
was very sweet of her. So that was pretty cool.
This was great to see Jerry, and people seemed really
excited to talk to her and meet her as well.
(38:34):
Then there was Alf, the Alien Opiner and his wonderful wife.
Alf is absolutely the word I will use is remarkable,
Absolutely remarkable, because he has listened to essentially every second
of audio that we've produced over multiple decades. KLAC fill In,
(38:55):
WEEI remote Work, Fox Sports Radio, the Fifth Hour podcast,
fill in shows in places like Denver, Portland and Seattle,
random radio hits and obscure markets, and some not so obscure,
like our weekly appearance in Kansas City. You've got interviews,
mail bags, probably commercials accidentally recorded over static way back
(39:21):
in twenty four And for Alf, it is all MLAC
must listen audio content, and that is loyalty. And I'd
never met Alf before. Of course, you could also argue
it's either loyalty or evidence of long term some kind
of long term government experiment. Who knows Alf. Alf was great.
(39:46):
Alf was great and he had the multiple T shirt
fashion thing going on. I call that the Rob Parker
where Rob would go on the old Spirit airlines and
wear multiple shirts so he wouldn't have to bring luggage.
And Alf had custom shirts featuring great Malor show moments
and the famous Eddie Garcia double bird photo, which I immediately
(40:09):
text Eddie a copy of the photo of the shirt,
because some images deserve to live forever. And so we
caught up with Alf and his wife and it was
really really neat to see them and so happy I
got to meet them. I was supposed to meet Alf
a couple years back at the event we did outside Boba's,
unfortunately did not work out. And then that was the
(40:31):
tragedy with Masshole Mickey that died shortly after that in
a car accident, and part of the reason we went
back was for Masshole Mickey. Then but wait, there's more.
We had Andre from the Commonwealth. Yes that Andre, educator, referee, podcaster,
renaissance man, human dissertation. Andre talks exactly this the way
(40:53):
someone sounds when they're preparing a ted talk about accidentally
calling a sports radio show and discussing the back court
of the Knickerbockers, and somehow, some somehow, someway he ends
his calls at almost exactly three minutes. Every single time.
You don't have to fight Andre, he makes his point,
(41:15):
he hangs up. That's elite situational awareness. That's Hall of
Fame level clock management. It's by the clock for the clock,
plausibly all about the clock from Andre. Bill Belichick would
approve it. And again no, Andrea's dog Willis was not
in the hissy. The whole night was wonderfully absurd. Again,
(41:36):
these things are similar and they're not similar at the
same time. You understand what I'm saying here is a
collection of strangers connected by one common bond overnight sports talk,
inside jokes, insomnia, and the shared non sense. Nobody, nobody
(41:59):
normally would fully understand it. Right. The daytime people they
don't get us. The people that are podcast only people,
they don't understand what this thing's all about. It's a
communal experience. You can't get that on just a podcast.
I realize I'm saying this on a podcast, but the
radio show experience is unique. It's not something that can
(42:19):
be recreated. No one stumbles onto a podcast. It just
doesn't happen. You stumble on to a radio show. You
can stumble on to a show and sample it. It's
very difficult to do that with a podcast. In fact,
I would argue it's impossible. And so the thing that
(42:40):
these people don't understand that works during the day and
all that That's the very thing that to me is
why this all fits together. All the jigsaw puzzle pieces
fit together. And that's what I was thinking. I was
driving back at the end of the night, and time
is valuable. Everybody who showed up gave up their Saturday,
(43:03):
and it would have been easy to make an excuse,
and a lot of people did. And I don't judge
you for that. If you had stuff going on, I
get it. Kids are much more important than an overnight
radio meet and greet. Understand keeping your marriage intact much
more important. I got you, I got you. I'm just
saying that enough people sat through the weather, ignored all
(43:23):
the other distractions. A lot of you drove long distances,
your rearranged schedules, made excuses to spouses, found babysitters, braved
parking lots designed by medieval torturers, all to hang out
for a couple of minutes in this bizarre, freak show
traveling circus that we call the mal Ord Militia. And somehow,
(43:46):
against all odds, I got this. Since I might be
wrong on this, but I got the sense that it
was meaningful. It felt meaningful to me. It's therapeutic in
many ways. It's educational, uh, these events, and and so
it felt meaningful, which is dangerous for me to admit,
because I would much rather just deal in sarcasm rather
(44:09):
than sincerity. It just it just did, though, it just did.
And that's a good spot. That's the sweet spot right there,
and it's a it's a really good place to hit
the pause button. Now, believe it or not, we will
have even more on the Sunday mail bag. We'll have
some bonus meet and greet. And why this turned into
a three day, three day situation not just a one day,
(44:34):
a three day situation, Oh man, I glutton for punishment.
We'll get to that well the mail bag tomorrow. Have
a wonderful rest of your Saturday. Here this sixteenth day
of May, it is Dick and Dayton would say bye bye,
bye bye bye. Felation
Kabooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mallor,
as we hang out together on this Saturday, the sixteenth
day of May.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
The Mallard travelogue continues. Not much to talk about. We
had a couple of NBA games on Friday night and
a real doozy. What a way to go out putting
up a fight. The Minnesota Timberwoles boy chance to force
(01:03):
a Game seven in the NBA playoff series there at
Target Center, and the Minnesota basketball team fell behind by
as many as thirty seven. They didn't trim the lead
down to thirty as San Antonio mollywopped the Minnesota basketball team.
(01:25):
Good afternoon, good evening, and good night. The Timberwolves never
led in that game, not a second at home, and
they go down last night as it wasn't all though
Wemby show it was a castle in the sky as
(01:45):
a Stefan castle there with thirty two points to lead
the way, everyone shooting lights out for the Spurs, So
they move on to play Oklahoma City in a matchup
it's being marketed as an matchup. From a pure basketball standpoint,
it is an epic matchup. From a media market standpoint,
(02:07):
it is not an epic matchup. And then you had
the Cleveland Cavaliers, an opportunity for the Cavs at home
to close it out, wrap things up, take on the
Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, and of course Cleveland
completely malfunctioned in this game, and they did it in
(02:29):
many ways. In the second half. At halftime it was
a three point game, the Pistons leading fifty four to
fifty one, and in the second half at home, a
chance to rubber stamp your ticket go to the next round.
You got the full experience. James Harden and Donovan Mitchell
combined to shoot five of eighteen in the second half,
(02:53):
and James Harden had a bunch of turnovers as he
always does. And the Cavaliers and the Pistons will have
a Game seven, the winner gets a date into the
Final Four. The Cavaliers did not lead in the second
half of that game. They only briefly led early on
in the game. That was it. So that's the NBA.
(03:16):
Enough of that, you didn't tune into this podcast for that.
We get back to the meat and potatoes on this Saturday.
We billboard this as the Intervention disguise as a pastry
meet up, the Raccoon Operating heavy Machinery, and more. But
we begin with this as we continue our in depth
(03:37):
team coverage of what was a magically delicious trip to
the Commonwealth and beyond. So there are certain streets if
you've not spent a lot of time in Boston, there
are certain streets on the North End of Boston that
feel less like roads and more like old secrets, Like
you got dropped out of a time machine and you're
(03:59):
in this place that goes way way, way way back. Now,
I've not been to the truly historic sites of the world,
the pyramids in Egypt, or spots around the Middle East
and in Europe that are just ridiculously old. I've not
been there. So for me, this is as close as
I've been to anything like this. The north end of Boston.
(04:19):
The brick building kind of lean inward a little bit,
feels like it's either the back lot at Universal Studios, Hollywood,
or you're somehow far far away from reality. So the
buildings are leading in. The alleyways are very narrow, built
for horses. The cobblestone shines under the street lights like
(04:42):
wet teeth, and even the air feels just a little
different there, certainly after midnight, little salty cold. It's got
traces of garlic, and there's rain, water and bad decisions
and all that. This part of our story begins on
(05:04):
one of those streets. My wife and I had just
returned from Maine, as you know from previous episodes of
this podcast, namely yesterday. So we'd returned from Maine after
a long day of driving down nine to ninety five
surviving New England traffic circles enough lighthouse tourism to qualify
(05:27):
for honorary fisherman status. So we had one mission when
we got back to Boston. That mission palm Chicken palm, simple, noble, achievable, right,
except every spot we wanted to go to was closed
rejected by the gods of Italian cuisine. So we drifted
(05:51):
instead into Bova's Bakery. It's always been a staple when
I come to Boston. I always loved the North End.
I love the Italian food. I love Bova's Bakery. So
that is where tired people and creatures of the night
and a lot of drunk college students gather under the
fluorescent lights to make very questionable dessert decisions. Now they
(06:12):
also have salty food. They have different regular food dishes
you can get, but it's a baker, it's a big
So you haven't truly lived until you've starved yourself and
it's late at night. You're dying to eat, and you're
kind of hanging out there, and you're staring into the
bakery case at eleven thirty, and you've convinced yourself that
(06:37):
a cream puff is a practical thing to eat at
this time. So there we stood outside Bova's with pastry
boxes in hand. The North End. It's really quiet, considering
you know this is a bustling part of town, or
whether it wasn't that bad, and anyway, this is when
(06:59):
I made the mistake. I shouldn't have done it. I'd
like to confess to you right now. I wish I
hadn't done it. I did it. It's done. I can't
take it back. So I'm standing there and I clicked
open the what you might call it on my phone,
and it's got the little like the camera like, it's
orange purple. It's the Instagram thing. I clicked open Instagram
(07:23):
and immediately, boom, boom goes the dynamite. I'm getting hit
up with messages everywhere from blind Scott Ah. Blind Scott
doesn't do one message, Blind Scott doesn't do two messages.
Blind Scott believes in carpet bombing your messenger device. Now,
if you're unfamiliar with blind Scott, and I don't know
(07:45):
how you could be unfamiliar with blind Scott, imagine a
combination of a sports talk radio caller, a wandering philosopher,
and a smoke detector with a very low battery. You
know that, sup chirp chirp, Yeah, that thing. You never
quite know when he's going to go off, but eventually
(08:10):
blind Scott will go off. And lately blind Scott has
gone sideways a myriad of threats, some of them very angry,
deep dark stuff enough for people, and you know who
you are, reached out to me. You were genuinely concerned
about my well being and having to deal with blind Scott.
(08:35):
And it was to the point where you start wondering
if someone's driving with two wheels off the road, if
you know what I mean. Now, normally the grown up move,
the smart move, would have been just to ignore these
messages on Instagram and focus in on the beautiful people
(08:57):
who are on there to make money by shaking what
their mamas gave them instead, against every survivable instinct. I
possess every survival instinct that I've been taught when I
was a cub Scout and a boy scout. I responded, ah, yes,
another tremendous idea, said the dry little voice that appears
(09:19):
whenever I ignore common sense on purpose. So I responded,
I told Scott, Hey, we are outside Bova's. If he
wanted to stop by quickly, within seconds, right now, question mark.
So the speed of the response was rather unset, like
(09:39):
he'd been hiding behind a trash barrel somewhere on the
side of Bova's, refreshing the app waiting for me to
walk in, And of course I did. I wrote back.
I said, yes, I wrote back, but we're leaving soon.
I was like eyes make this happen. That's it out.
So then I got silence, and we recorded a quick
(10:02):
little hype video for the Malad militia. Excited about being
in Boston, wrapped up the pastries and put them in
the bag, prepared to head back to the hotel. However,
now there was this strange feeling hanging in the air,
like we'd accidentally scheduled a global summit meeting nobody fully
(10:28):
wanted and nobody fully understood. It's the cloak and dagger
part of the story. And so here I am standing there,
waiting in the North End at night, and when you're
on that part of Boston, the North End, it just
does things to your imagination, or at least it did
(10:51):
to me. It could have been whatever I was eating
or drinking at the time. The streets feel older than
America itself because they are older than America itself. Somewhere nearby,
Paul Revere once rowed through, warning the British were coming.
The British were coming. Though personally I think history under
(11:12):
sold Israel Bissel, the other writer who covered something like
three hundred miles that night and got absolutely no poetry
written about him. And this is one of those things
in life, and it's a lot clearer now because of
social media. Even back in the seventeen hundreds. Even back
(11:36):
in the seventeen hundreds, you had the haves and the
have nots. And I look at it like the Willis
Reid game. The Willis Reid game where he played on
a broken leg is called the Willis Reed game. Willis Reid,
I think, scored one or two baskets, played a couple
of minutes in the first quarter, and that was it.
It was the Walt Clyde Fraser game. Nobody calls it
(11:57):
that Walt Clyde Fraser is the reason the Knicks the
Lakers that day. He was the star of the show.
He just doesn't get the credit. And much like Israel
Bissel does not get the credit, Paul Revere got the
credit and the reason. And this is just a great
metaphor for life. The reason is because the name Israel
Bissel did not work for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the famous
(12:23):
poet laureate who wrote the poet about the Paul Revere,
and that the name works. It's a much better name,
Paul Revere. It flows off the tongue than Israel Bissel.
And so that's a tough break. That's seventeen seventy five
branding Israel Bissel learning the lesson. You gotta have the
right branding or it's not going to work. Anyway. Back
(12:45):
to the story, So we're standing there under a dim
street light and I hear something and at first it
sounded like some metal scraping the stone. Then I heard
a thud, and then another and out of the darkness.
Now you gotta imagine here. It's after midnight, it's dimly lit,
it's a little damp, it had rained a few hours earlier,
(13:08):
and way down the cobblestone street appeared this shadowy figure.
It wasn't walking straight. It looked to be the silhouette
of a human, and it was swaying. It was limping
a little bit and stopping every few steps. And I'm
looking off into this and I'm like, oh boy, what
do we got here? You know? My wife looked at me,
(13:29):
I looked back at her, and neither of us spoke.
We just kind of nodded. The figure moved a little closer,
a little closer you could kind of see a little
bit under the weak yellow glow of those street lights,
and suddenly I could make out what appeared to be
a cane, not a candy cane, an actual cane. Then
(13:53):
the limp became more dramatic, too dramatic. That is when
I realized what was happening in front of my eyes,
on a pretty empty part of the street, right across
from Povia's Bakery. Blind Scott was attempting the notorious Willy
(14:14):
Wonka entrance. Not the creepy remake. I'm talking about the
og Gene Wilder version, the famous fake limp before the
surprise Somersault. Only this was not exactly Broadway quality. This
was not Tinseltown quality. At one point, blind Scott's cane
became jammed between a couple of things on the street
(14:38):
I don't know if it was a pothole or a
couple of cobblestone, and nearly launched him headfirst into the
colonial infrastructure. His body tilted dangerously forward, like a refrigerator
falling downstairs, and for a split second, I honestly thought
I was about to witness a full wipeout directly in
(15:00):
front of the Paul Revere House gift shop, or at
least close enough. Plausibly, somehow, some way, impossibly well blind
Scott regained balance much like Gene Wilder, barely A passing
couple froze and watched the whole thing unfold like the
(15:23):
way tourists are supposed to watch these things, stumbling like
they stumbled onto some kind of weird outdoor theater show.
So blind Scott finally reached us. He was a little
out of breath, looking both exhausted and very proud of himself,
like a man who had just crossed enemy lines, carrying
(15:44):
a secret government document and half a canoli. And that's
when things got serious right around here, because this wasn't
really a social visit. There were ulterior motives. This was
an intervention disguise is a pastry meet up, if you will.
(16:05):
Blind Scott, as we had talked about, had spent many,
many months spiraling online, spiraling online, threatening to docks me,
saying insane things, insane to the membrane about murder, and
going into very dark territory that stopped being funny a
(16:27):
long long time ago. So right there on this quiet
Boston side street, surrounded by old brick buildings in cream
puff boxes, we had a cloak and dagger conversation, a
real one heart to heart man demand. I told Scott calmly,
(16:51):
I was firm. I said enough is enough. I said,
knock it off, just be nice. This is not healthy
is It's not who you are. I gave blind Scott
an extra large helping of tough love. And the thing
that really surprised me is that blind Scott listened. He
(17:14):
actually listened. He did, although midway through this conversation he
wandered into the street and nearly got hit by a
car and killed, which honestly felt on brand enough that
nobody even reacted immediately other than me. Then came the
plot twist that I did not have on my bingo card.
(17:35):
I thought of how bad this could have gone. I thought, well,
Scott might bring a weapon, and as well, at least
he can't see where he's shooting. And I thought, well,
that'd be good. I'd be okay most likely, But I
can't guarantee the safety of the people around me and
my wife, and that scared me a little bit. But
blind Scott listened to what I had to say. He apologized,
and it wasn't like a joking apology. It was not
(17:55):
a half hearted apology. It was just a genuine, if
the apology, and he said he had been struggling with
some of his demons, which was rather obvious, you didn't
need say it. Said he had been off his meds,
and that he knew that he had crossed the line
and he was just trying to get attention, and a
(18:16):
lot of stuff like that, And we had a very
good conversation. We tried to encourage blind Scott to get
the help that he needs. The state of Massachusetts would
be more than happy to help blind Scott, and you know,
he was like, well, I don't really like to go
out and get the help I need and all that stuff. Anyway,
this is suddenly this whole bizarre scene, the midnight mallord
(18:38):
meeting that was not planned, the shadow in the street,
the pastry diplomacy. It stopped feeling ridiculous for a moment.
It just felt human. It just felt human. And then
Scott shuffled back into the Boston Knight, disappearing down the
cobblestone the same way he arrived, like a mystery no
(19:00):
nobody could fully explain. And we would see Scott again
the following day. And we now move ahead in our
broadcast and get back to our Malar mini series on
our regularly scheduled adventures in and around the Commonwealth and beyond.
So the Worcester part of the trip we talked about
(19:21):
Boston on the Friday Pod. The Worcester part of the
trip was supposed to begin with me throwing out the
first pitch at Polar Park. That was the plan, the
best laid plans of mice men and middle aged gas bags.
So plans are adorable. Plans are what you make before
New England weather laughs in your face and dumps a
(19:45):
swimming pool on your rental car. So instead of bounding
out of bed on Saturday like Rocky Boalboa, charging up
the steps ready to throw some haymakers, I became a
hostile negotiator with my hotel pillow. I was very tired
from the event on Friday and the travel and not
(20:06):
getting much sleep at all. And I don't normally get
a lot of sleep, but usually one day a week
I'll get a firm asleep, And so I'm flipping the
pillow and I'm repositioning my body in bed, and I'm
checking my phone. Said, well, maybe the radar was wrong
and the game won't get rained out, and all that well,
kept raining more rain, biblical rain, rain, that makes you
(20:27):
wonder if a guy named Noah is somewhere warming up,
building out an arc of Dunkin donut boxes and some
old Red Sox programs, and is hurting up Lucky the
Leprechaun and Wally the Green Monster and getting everyone together,
pat Patriot and all that. And I was, I was
(20:48):
worn out. Listen, it happens. The kind of tired your
socks feel heavy, the kind of tired you're near your knees.
They just kind of file a bit of a grievance
with the rest of you. And so we just said,
you know what, we'd stayed late after the Mighty Squirrel
gathering because my wife, after the event, she said, well,
(21:10):
I want to go out and get some food. And
since I was somebody who'd nobly refused to eat at
the tap room, there not my eating window. I do
this fugesy fasting thing, and on vacation rare and appropriate.
You can eat a little later, eat fast a little less,
live your life, enjoy your life. And so we wandered
(21:32):
off into the Boston Seaport looking for a late night meal,
and much like we found the other night on the
North End, not a lot there. The seaport is fascinating,
though it's better during the day. It's Boston's version of
a glow up story. Used to be shipping docks, rough trade,
(21:52):
maritime hustle. Now it's art galleries, luxury skyscrapers, condo buildings,
influencers wandering around pretending they just discovered espresso, martinis and
all that, and the old shipping area reinvented into a
mix of tourism and also, of course a great spot
(22:16):
for a middle aged radio host to convince themselves that
they are buying something that counts as fitness by these
different stores. They a lot of fitness athletics stores and
things like that. So at one point I read this
the other day, at one point in twenty sixteen, they
(22:38):
discovered an actual shipwreck, like a real shipwreck, buried underground there.
Imagine that a bunch of construction Jabbroni's are out there working.
They're digging in. Suddenly they find a boat, and not
just any boat, a boat from the eighteen hundreds underneath
(22:58):
modern Boston. And this was about a decade ago, which
is also roughly how I feel every few weeks when
I stand up too quickly, I feel like I have unearthed,
a relic from the past. I'm like, how did that
get there? And oh, my back, my neck, my back
and my neck and the whole thing. But yeah, I
(23:20):
guess you can say a couple times a month, I
am an ancient wreck beneath civilization. So we ended up
at this place called Stubbies. I'd never been to Stubbies,
didn't know much about Stubbies. Tremendous steak and cheese sandwich.
It's possible I was just hungry, but I really enjoyed
the meal. Tremendous, greasy in all the right ways, heavy
in the right way. It sat in my stomach like
(23:43):
a weighted blanket, which encourages sleep. Then came the long
zombie walk back to the hotel through the drizzle of
the seaport while my body quietly threatened litigation against me.
So now it's very very early on Saturday morning and
(24:04):
we're there. We get to the hotel and we were
greeted shortly after by thunder wind, sideways rain, just the
general mood of a Viking funeral. Felt like you were
at a Viking funeral, not a Minnesota Viking funeral. Because
we were in Boston and so we slept and deeply aggressively,
(24:25):
the kind of sleep where you wake up confused about geography,
unsure what year it is, wondering if your room key
is still going to work or if society had collapsed,
and you slept right through it. So finally, sometime later
in the afternoon we rose from hibernation mode. That's what
(24:48):
you do. And there is a very specific sound that
people around my age make when they wake up soar
in a hotel bed. It's notuage, it's not even communication.
It's just noises. It's a grunt, it's a groan, it's
bones auditioning for the percussion section of the band. I
(25:12):
made that sound. Then came what is the mandatory, mandatory
and ceremonial full body stretch, which in my case looked
less like stretching and more like an inflatable tube man
outside a tire shop trying to survive high winds. And
so we tossed some clothes on, and then it was
(25:36):
time to go to the lobby to get the rental
car and head off to Wooster. And so we got
the gang together and we said, we're gonna go out
the worst, the big, the big event is taking place,
and so we got Coop his wife, Lorena my wife,
(25:56):
and away we went. Now I'd never been to Worcester
before I knew about it. Of course, I'd heard about Worcester.
My grandfather used to tell me stories about the Worcester
Springfield area, an area that he lived a lot of
his youth in As a kid. Growing up, my Yiddish
loving Bobo treated Central Massachusetts like it was a mythical homeland.
(26:19):
And to me, Worcester was not just a city. It
was a concept, a spiritual location, a place where men
wore jackets in July complained professionally. They call it the
Heart of the Commonwealth. That's what the slogan is, and
it sounds less like a slogan, more like a prescription medication,
(26:40):
Heart of the Commonwealth. Ask your doctor if Worcester is
right for you. But the city has legitimate history, and
I love history. Revolutionary War supply depot Worcester. First public
reading of the Declaration of Independence that seems like a
big deal in Massachusetts happened in Worcester. Birthplace of the
(27:03):
mass produced Valentine's Day card in Worcester. First public park
in America was not in Boston or New York or Philadelphia.
It was in Worcester, the second largest city in New England.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. And yet
if you tell people in Boston you're driving out to Worcester,
(27:23):
they react like you announced you're joining a traveling in
a circus. And of course we were. We do it
overnight radio. So we headed down the mass Pike in
the rain. And when I say we, as I said
to me, the wife Coop his wife and Lorena slow
and study and I didn't get a speeding ticket, no accident,
(27:46):
which for a Los Angeles driver operating in New England
weather is basically worthy of a championship parade or at
least a medal. At least a medal. And when you
drive down the mass Pike from Boston out to Worcester,
you pass all of these landmarks. Finnway's Green Monster, the
Celtics practice facility, the r Box Center, the Warrior Ice Arena,
(28:11):
the home of the Boston Bruins practice facility, the New
Balance headquarters. It's a sports tourism buffet every few miles,
every few miles, another reminder that New England people take
sports just a little more seriously than the rest of us,
and certainly more seriously than vitamins. They loved the sports
(28:33):
more than the vitamins. So we got out to bold
Lands a little late, paid for parking because apparently Massachusetts
believes that parking spots should cost the same as beachfront property.
I took a couple of photos outside to hype things
up on social media, and then we headed in. We
made our trip in and immediately, immediately the place was jumping'
(28:58):
it was buzzing'. Bowllands had the perfect Irish pub energy.
Could tell why Mike the Leprechaun had picked this place. Loud,
it was welcoming, It was busy, yet not totally chaotic.
You had live music with a house band echoing throughout
the building. The pints were flowing, people talking over each other.
(29:23):
It was a lot going on in a lot of
those thick New England accents where every sentence sounded like
both compliment and a threat at the same time. How
can you make that sound like a compliment and a
threat at the same time. How does one do that?
I don't know, asked the guy over there. And our
setup was in the back, so we went to the
back and there were signs welcoming us, they had the
(29:46):
malard themed food spread. Mike the Leprecaun's kids had done
a great job decorating. Even though they hate the show,
we thank them for their generosity to help us out.
So we had malard themed food spread out like a
Bizarro radio host roast banquet. It was simultaneously flattering and
also slightly concerning. Anytime someone names food after you, there's
(30:11):
a risk involved. There's absolutely risk involved. And I had
been getting cancelation emails all day. That was another thing.
As we walked in, I was like, oh boy, oh man.
I the messages. The theme was Hey, why wanted to go?
But my wife said no, and I I gotta you know,
I gotta listen to her, and I I gotta save
(30:31):
that for for football. And it's not football. Kid got sick.
Kid had a soccer tournament or a softball tournament. You know,
two states over dog ate something. I'm not sure what.
We've got a monitor of the dog. My aunt fell down.
I don't know how bad it is. We might have
to take her to the emergency room. Three words too
much rain. Okay, got that t m R. Too much rain.
(30:54):
The aliens have landed. Therefore, I can't go meet you. Okay,
sounds good. Everybody you had a discuse everybody, So naturally
I started getting that kind of flop sweat thing going on,
spiraling down my forehead. That's what I do. I catastrophize professionally.
(31:19):
I'm basically the Mozart of irritation and irrational irritation and concern.
And even though I'm now looking at what appears to
be a very lively building, what if nobody comes, what
if it's awkward, what if Mike the Leprechaun stage is
a coup. However, these are hardy New England people. You
(31:41):
travel twenty five hundred miles and they will show up
and they will show out. And I'm happy to report
that Wooster absolutely showed up and absolutely showed out. They
rolled out the Wu Socks carpet for me. The room
became this incredible stew of humanity, all shapes and sizes,
(32:02):
all ages, young, old, in the middle, loud extroverts, introverts,
the quiet, the stylish, the disheveled. Everyone right there, Attractive
people mixed with people like me who looked like we
were assembled from spare parts behind a pep boys, And
it felt like somebody emptied an entire sports radio message
(32:27):
board if they still have those things into one room
and added beer. And then Mike the Leprechaun he decided,
you know, I'm gonna hijack the thing because I'm Mike
the Leprecaun. He did, of course, he did. What a character,
this guys, what a character. So at some point Mike
literally booted the Irish Band off stage. It would appear
(32:48):
this is what I'm being told, so he could do
what can only be described as a one man variety show.
I'm talking a monologue, song, jokes, chaos. It was like,
if you're old enough to remember public access television, if
public access television had consumed several energy drinks and fallen
(33:13):
into the part of YouTube where nobody watches any of
those videos, yet they are all saved. That was the
part the Irish Band looks stunned, like deeply concerned. Mike
the Leprechaun was totally oblivious. He was obtuse to what
was going on, and he was thriving. I watched some
of this unfold the way that a visitor to the
(33:36):
zoo would observe a raccoon operating heavy machinery. Equal parts fascinated, concerned,
and unable to look away. And then came the Conga line,
the Conga, the parade of characters. We had Ernesto from
the Bay Area who returned for Night two wearing this
(33:58):
smooth Socks jersey. Because Ernesto, he's all in and this guy,
he's got to have quite the memorabilia collection. I love
Ernesto's big Niner guy. He's my favorite Niner fan of today,
along with Jay Scoop and a few others. But Ernesta's
wonderful because he's the guy that will he'd be willing
(34:18):
to put on the team gear for wherever he happens
to be because he wants to be part of the
mood of that event. And it was great to see
Ernesto and his Wusox jersey. Will the p One arrived
again from he was at the Boston event. Will's the
guy performing good deeds for his family there, helping out
(34:39):
like someone who's kind of like a batman of sports talk.
You had Bill from Boston who showed up rocking the
paper boy cap. Brian from Worcester, a fellow member of
the tribe. As we had a brief conversation. We're both
culturally Jewish, spiritually sarcastic, and that was a hilarious conver station.
(35:01):
One of those naturally funny people who doesn't realize he's
funny and all that. So I enjoyed chatting with Brian.
Christian rolled in with He had a tremendous mascot shirt
on which I liked a lot. Then there was Brian
and Mikayla, who showed up as the perfect couple prototype.
(35:22):
She teaches fifth grade and she was full of energy
bouncing around that everyone was having some fun. Santallo and
she was very polite to everybody, were kind and he
apparently has a doctor at Brian in sarcasm, which I appreciate.
Wonderful people, as Brian said on social media, the silent majority,
(35:44):
which is really what Brian is. Brian's a big fan
of the show and the podcast and all that, and
he's not an active contributor in terms of content. That
there he was, he and his lady, and it was
it was great, the silent majority. They were there. But wait,
there's more. We had Chris from the Gluten Free Bakery,
(36:05):
and I got to tell you about that. Let me
tell you something. This woman deserves some kind of metal,
or at least a faux golden ticket. So I believe
she works at Duke's, which is a gluten free bakery.
She drove an hour in the rain after she had
worked a twelve hour shift baking these gluten free treats. Now,
(36:26):
that is dedication, that is commitment. That is also behavior
suggesting caffeine played a significant role in this event. But
it was so sweet. She's a big fan, and she
didn't have a lot of time to hang out with us.
She obviously needed to go get her rest, but she
made sure to come by. We took a photo, We
said our hellos, and small talked a little bit and
(36:46):
it was just just absolutely wonderful to meet Chris, and
I thank you for listening. Was really sweet of you
to make the effort. I mean there were people that
live right down the street that didn't make the effort,
So I mean the fact that you drove that far
was really cool. Matt from Salem works overnight in the
shipping world, moving boxes through the night like some exhausted
(37:07):
maritime elf doing his thing, and he's a good dude there.
He stopped by. We talked about Salem and the fact
we had been in Salem the day prior. Danny DeVito,
not the actor, not the actor though honestly at this
point who knows, arrived looking sharp, fashionable. He had this
(37:28):
all black ensemble and this nice chain on. The man
travels with a posse because he's Dan and DeVito why not.
Had his brother there and some other folks. Then there
was Jerry from Rhode Island, our Taylor Swift. Jerry from
Rhode Island, absolute rockstar. She commandeered some family members mainly
(37:48):
her sister, to drive her through some awful weather just
to attend. She brought gifts all height How sweet is that?
Brought some energy, brought some positivity. Now. I had met
Jerry in Los Angeles during the twenty eighteen World Series
in La La Land, back before my exile because of
Sho Hail Tani and Jerry was invited. She had a
(38:12):
VIP trip out to Los Angeles for a Dodger Red
Sox game and there she was, yet again smiling through
the rain and the pain and all that. And she
brought some nice little gifts from the Ocean State, which
was very sweet of her. So that was pretty cool.
This was great to see Jerry, and people seemed really
excited to talk to her and meet her as well.
(38:34):
Then there was Alf, the Alien Opiner and his wonderful wife.
Alf is absolutely the word I will use is remarkable,
Absolutely remarkable, because he has listened to essentially every second
of audio that we've produced over multiple decades. KLAC fill In,
(38:55):
WEEI remote Work, Fox Sports Radio, the Fifth Hour podcast,
fill in shows in places like Denver, Portland and Seattle,
random radio hits and obscure markets, and some not so obscure,
like our weekly appearance in Kansas City. You've got interviews,
mail bags, probably commercials accidentally recorded over static way back
(39:21):
in twenty four And for Alf, it is all MLAC
must listen audio content, and that is loyalty. And I'd
never met Alf before. Of course, you could also argue
it's either loyalty or evidence of long term some kind
of long term government experiment. Who knows Alf. Alf was great.
(39:46):
Alf was great and he had the multiple T shirt
fashion thing going on. I call that the Rob Parker
where Rob would go on the old Spirit airlines and
wear multiple shirts so he wouldn't have to bring luggage.
And Alf had custom shirts featuring great Malor show moments
and the famous Eddie Garcia double bird photo, which I immediately
(40:09):
text Eddie a copy of the photo of the shirt,
because some images deserve to live forever. And so we
caught up with Alf and his wife and it was
really really neat to see them and so happy I
got to meet them. I was supposed to meet Alf
a couple years back at the event we did outside Boba's,
unfortunately did not work out. And then that was the
(40:31):
tragedy with Masshole Mickey that died shortly after that in
a car accident, and part of the reason we went
back was for Masshole Mickey. Then but wait, there's more.
We had Andre from the Commonwealth. Yes that Andre, educator, referee, podcaster,
renaissance man, human dissertation. Andre talks exactly this the way
(40:53):
someone sounds when they're preparing a ted talk about accidentally
calling a sports radio show and discussing the back court
of the Knickerbockers, and somehow, some somehow, someway he ends
his calls at almost exactly three minutes. Every single time.
You don't have to fight Andre, he makes his point,
(41:15):
he hangs up. That's elite situational awareness. That's Hall of
Fame level clock management. It's by the clock for the clock,
plausibly all about the clock from Andre. Bill Belichick would
approve it. And again no, Andrea's dog Willis was not
in the hissy. The whole night was wonderfully absurd. Again,
(41:36):
these things are similar and they're not similar at the
same time. You understand what I'm saying here is a
collection of strangers connected by one common bond overnight sports talk,
inside jokes, insomnia, and the shared non sense. Nobody, nobody
(41:59):
normally would fully understand it. Right. The daytime people they
don't get us. The people that are podcast only people,
they don't understand what this thing's all about. It's a
communal experience. You can't get that on just a podcast.
I realize I'm saying this on a podcast, but the
radio show experience is unique. It's not something that can
(42:19):
be recreated. No one stumbles onto a podcast. It just
doesn't happen. You stumble on to a radio show. You
can stumble on to a show and sample it. It's
very difficult to do that with a podcast. In fact,
I would argue it's impossible. And so the thing that
(42:40):
these people don't understand that works during the day and
all that That's the very thing that to me is
why this all fits together. All the jigsaw puzzle pieces
fit together. And that's what I was thinking. I was
driving back at the end of the night, and time
is valuable. Everybody who showed up gave up their Saturday,
(43:03):
and it would have been easy to make an excuse,
and a lot of people did. And I don't judge
you for that. If you had stuff going on, I
get it. Kids are much more important than an overnight
radio meet and greet. Understand keeping your marriage intact much
more important. I got you, I got you. I'm just
saying that enough people sat through the weather, ignored all
(43:23):
the other distractions. A lot of you drove long distances,
your rearranged schedules, made excuses to spouses, found babysitters, braved
parking lots designed by medieval torturers, all to hang out
for a couple of minutes in this bizarre, freak show
traveling circus that we call the mal Ord Militia. And somehow,
(43:46):
against all odds, I got this. Since I might be
wrong on this, but I got the sense that it
was meaningful. It felt meaningful to me. It's therapeutic in
many ways. It's educational, uh, these events, and and so
it felt meaningful, which is dangerous for me to admit,
because I would much rather just deal in sarcasm rather
(44:09):
than sincerity. It just it just did, though, it just did.
And that's a good spot. That's the sweet spot right there,
and it's a it's a really good place to hit
the pause button. Now, believe it or not, we will
have even more on the Sunday mail bag. We'll have
some bonus meet and greet. And why this turned into
a three day, three day situation not just a one day,
(44:34):
a three day situation, Oh man, I glutton for punishment.
We'll get to that well the mail bag tomorrow. Have
a wonderful rest of your Saturday. Here this sixteenth day
of May, it is Dick and Dayton would say bye bye,
bye bye bye. Felation
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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