May 17, 2026 • 56 mins
On this Sunday edition of the Fifth Hour Podcast, Ben is joined by legendary Podcast P1 Niko from Vancouver — the mastermind behind the unforgettable poutine-powered Maller Meet & Greet north of the border. Ben reveals how he got hornswoggled into a surprise third Meet & Greet during the wild New England road trip, complete with hardball skullduggery and what can only be described as “The Maller Gastrointestinal Classic.” Then it’s time for the Mailbag as Ben and Niko go rapid fire on Big Tech spying, sending food back at restaurants, Anthony in Louisiana playing Rico Suave, hot dog fries, outlawing radio jingles, a World Cup halftime show, drunk swamp buck stories, and plenty more Maller mayhem.
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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 sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 3 (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 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me Ben
Mahlor and a special surprise appearance by who. If you've
read the description of this podcast, you already know, but
if not, you're in for a treat. On this the
Sunday edition, the seventeenth day of the month of May,
(00:51):
and we will get to the mail bag in the all.
But we are joined this week in our revolving rotation
of celebrities our special friend of the show, and if
you have been listening over the last few years, you
know who this guy is. He was part of one
of the big events that we had in recent years.
From Vancouver, we welcome in Nico. Now you might remember
(01:16):
from the we had a great trip to Canada and
visited beautiful British Columbia and that was all possible by
our friend Nico. Hello, Nico, how are you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
My man number one? Yes, I am back. How was
everyone today?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Everyone's great, Nico, and Nico. You're part of what I
call the silent majority of the show, Nico, because you're
you listen to the podcast, right, You don't stay up
all night and all that, but you listen to the podcast.
You've been loyal Meani into the show and you're part
of the backbone of the show and we appreciate that.
And everything is good here and on your end, everything
(01:55):
all right, Yeah, everything is great.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
You know we obviously the Malon Militia missed you last
week with Brian No filling in, but he held it
down doing a little bit of a strict tease with
the NFL schedule a release which I thought was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, yeah, I know. The schedule thing was. You know,
that has gone next level in our lifetime, Nico, because
you know, I know how your and how old I am.
In our lifetime when we were younger, that was never
nobody cared. But now it's like it's next level. So
and you will be with us for this entire episode
before we get to the Mailbag, though I did want
to put the finishing touches on a jam packed weekend
(02:35):
of the Mallard Travelogue, which, as I put it out
on the Friday episode, I planned on doing all of
this initially in my head when I was flying back
to California from from the East Coast, I was like,
I'm gonna do all this. I'll put this in the
Friday podcast, and then I'll have other things to talk
about on Saturday and Sunday. And yet here we are
(02:57):
on the Sunday podcast and I'm still telling stories Nico.
I have. There's that much stuff that happened Nico while
I was away, so I'll continue with that. And for
those of you keeping score at home, the we mentioned
this on the Saturday podcast, but the Wu Socks game
was rained out the Triple A team of the Red Sox,
(03:18):
and somehow that turned into a bonus episode of the
Fifth Hour, which is this episode, which is the mail Bag,
which is in my part of it, not Nico, of course,
Nico's He's a lean, mean wrecking machine, but my part
of it middle aged man abuses his digestive system while
(03:39):
chasing some kind of bizarre minor league glory now, as
you know, Nico, I am a glutton for punishment, and
I ended up spending I don't get a limited amount
of time off, and I spent part of my time
racing through the backwoods of Massachusetts and out into the
boondocks to go to a minor league baseball game. And
(04:00):
I might need some kind of medical intervention or something
medical it is the right word. But I was legitimately
bummed out a last last Saturday, I got the game
got washed out. I guess two saturdays ago now a
game got washed out, and I had mentally prepared myself
(04:22):
for the ceremonial first pitch, and I was like excited.
I practiced a little bit and got out there, tossed
the ball around with with my my brother, and I
was like, all right, this is exciting, and you know,
this is when you do talk radio. This is an
elite athletic opportunity to throw out the first pitch. And
I spent a good amount of time preparing myself and
(04:46):
I was replaying old clips and for me, I want
you to know, Nico, this was like Game seven of
the World Series or or the you know, you know,
if your baseball guy. But there the the super Bowl
whatever it might be. You know what I'm saying, feel me.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
On that, yeah, one percent exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So so instead we got the rain. I was like
a bummer, you know. And we went to this place
called Bowlwins out in Worcester that night, and and while
the Malard militia was carrying on like a traveling carnival,
and with Mike the Leprechaun, who informed me and he
was like he was, He's an Irish guy. He drinks
a lot, you know, it's the cliche, and he he
(05:24):
lives up to it. And so Mike was pounding some
alcohol and he informed me, say, hey, the Wu Socks
still want you to throw out the first pitch on Sunday. Well, okay,
that sounded wonderful in theory. It was horrifying in practice
because at this point in time, I like to shut
things down. I limit these social events. It's very bizarre
(05:47):
because I love doing the malor meat and Grease. I
have a lot of fun hearing the story of people
that are fans of the show and listening and finding
things out about you that that are listeners. And then
at some point my social battery it like it just
shuts down. It gets repossessed by the bank and then
that's it. And so I had done back to back
(06:08):
Friday and Saturday, and I was like exhausted. Now I'm
not paving a road, I'm not building a building, but
I was exhausted. I was spiritually depleted. And I'm you know,
living off airport snacks which I don't eat much of,
and I don't get a lot of sleep, and some
kind of weird cupcakes that I thought looked good that
I purchased at the on the North End, at the
(06:29):
bakery there, and you know, making poor decisions, you know,
those late night hours. So nonetheless, I was like, well,
this is an opportunity. I th' get made of these
opportunities to throw out the first pitch. This is the
fourth opportunity that I've had in my lifetime. Lancaster JetHawks,
which was an a ball team that's now out of
business in California. The Bakersfield Blaze, which is also out
(06:52):
of business now, the Inland Empire sixty six ers, which
I don't even know if they're still around. I think
they still are. That was the last one, and now
I can add the the technically the Red Sox Triple
A team they're the Worcester Red Sox, but everyone calls
them the WU Socks. So that's like four different minor
(07:14):
league teams. At least half of them have gone out
of business, which is not good news for the WU Sox.
And I'm basically the Crash Davis of ceremonial baseball appearances.
So I was like, ah, you know, we we got
to do this. I I'd planned to travel down to
visit my my brother on Sunday very early, so we improvised.
I canceled. I had plane, not plane tickets, I trained tickets.
(07:36):
I was gonna take the take the Amtrak from Boston
down to New York. And I was like, ah, we
rented a car. I went to Logan, rented a car,
stuffed all our luggage. And my wife loves to pack,
and Nico, you've met my wife. She she believes in
moving pretty much everything that we have. When we travel, it's, uh,
(07:57):
it's tough. I mean, you you travel a lot, and
I'm assuming you travel a little lighter than I travel.
But we'd take the whole house when we go anywhere.
It's wild.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
You got to you gotta prepare for the unpredictable, right.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
No, but you're supposed to be able to go lean
and mean, I thought, I look at all these people
on YouTube and they all have like one backpack and
they travel for a month. And I'm like, I got
multiple suitcases, I got backpacks. I don't even know what
I have anyway, So we had all this stuff and
we packed up the rental car at at Logan drove
(08:30):
out to Worcester, which is a decent drive from where
we were, and in it it was kind of you
know what it was. It was like we were we
were like fugitives on the run. We drove back to
Worcester less than twelve hours after leaving the event that
we did, and it was like it felt less like
transportation more like an endurance challenge sponsored by like rental
(08:54):
cars and some shaky decision making. So we got to
this minor league ballpark called Polar Park and waited for
Mike the Leprechaun, who took a few pictures with me
and some other random people, and then suddenly I was
escorted backstage at this baseball theater, beautiful ballpark in central Massachusetts.
(09:17):
Side entrance concrete tunnels, wandering through random corridors, the bowels
of the stadium. There were mascots wandering around waving at me,
and I didn't know. I knew one of the mascots.
I didn't know the other three or four mascots. And
there anyway, we're walking around like there's six or seven
(09:37):
mascots here. How many mascots can one minor league baseball
team have? And it was like a low budget horror
film at that point, I'm like, wow, they keep popping
up these mascots. And then came the moment. So I
got out to the field. I was there for like
maybe five minutes. I chatted up a couple of people.
I was then told I had to go out to
the mountain. So I was handed to baseball. I was
summoned towards the mound like the aging gunslinger being called
(10:02):
out for one final duel. Who knows this might be it?
And I got out to that mount and I delivered
what I will unofficially officially describe as high gas, a
right handed Eraaldis Chapman experience. The radar gun may never
recover from that pitch. And now certain critics, namely this
(10:25):
guy Matt Kay, who was at the game, claimed he
sent me an email. He claimed the pitch was terrible,
which is completely false. That's a disinformation campaign by Matt Kay.
That's deep state propagated. The pitch had movement, and it's
the term. Think of it like a charcouterie board where
(10:47):
I served up nothing but high cheese. And you know
baseball slanging, right, you're aware, Nico. You know baseball slang.
High cheese is a fastball thrown at the very top
of the strike. So is it not right at the
top high cheese.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
High cheese? You know what it is, Bill Ben. But
New York Mets, they're looking at you right now. They're
wanting to sign you to their roster. They need you.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I'm available, and listen, I'll hang out. All I get.
All I want is to hang out with mister Met
when I'm not pitching, I can. I can go down
and do some stick with mister Mett. So I threw
this high cheese, Nico, upper part of the zone and
right there, boom, speed, precision, very difficult to hit. I'm
getting I'm getting my balls busted by these guys. And
(11:34):
I got to point out also, I considered that, and
I didn't promote this prior to the fact that this happened.
I had mentioned my battery was at zero. I didn't
have a lot of sleep. I had some digestive instability
that we don't need to get into on the podcast.
But considering all of that, this was like my Willis
Reid game. In fact, it was better than Willis Reed.
(11:54):
This was my my Michael Jordan flu game. It was
the Mallard gastro Intestinal Classic is what it was there
in Worcester. And my favorite part was, though it wasn't
even the pitch, I got to meet a bunch of
other random listeners by completing total action. I was not
supposed to be at this game. We didn't really promote it.
(12:14):
There was no organized event, just some random p ones
materialized out of thin air. Baseball loving Woodland creatures. We
had Jerik from Rhode Island who drives a truck. He's
a big Yankee fan. They were playing the Yankees Triple
A affiliate. Ryan from Rhode Island came by d Mack
who has a basketball phenom son much like Nico. We'll
(12:38):
talk about his son. He's got a son that's doing
great in soccer. It's gonna be going to the next
level in that sport. Brian from Worcester came by fellow
member of the tribe who also was there at the
Saturday event that we did, and so just real quick
to I mean, I'm going long here, I apologize. Polar
Park really is a gem. Got just to paint the
(12:59):
picture for a blow listeners. It's Central mass so it's
an old town. A lot of history there going back
to the American Revolution for God's sakes, and rustic brick
buildings beyond the outfield train tracks every hour I was
told the train rolls past center field. You had that
old industrial New England energy. Just beautiful, the kind of
(13:25):
way that makes you want to buy a scorecard and
complain about you know, some random you know, d H
or something like that. And so the wusas I mentioned,
they were playing the Yankees Triple A team, the rail Riders.
I did not know that was a thing from Scranton, PA.
Scranton Wilkesbury, PA. And Anthony Volpi, who made one of
(13:47):
my favorite plays in World Series history when he was
playing shortstop for the Yankees and booted a ball in
Game five, fifth inning meltdown against the Dodgers a couple
of years back. Volpi went zero for four and continues
to be the most aggressively average to below average Yankee
suspect of his generation. He actually got called right back
(14:08):
up to the Yankees after this game, so I guess
they must have been really impressed by that. Oh for
four the Yankees that they called him back up. And
then George Lombard Junior, the third base suspect, looked very human.
He played in the game. The guy actually looked to me,
and I didn't stay for the whole game. The guy
looked really good. Elmer Rodriguez, who showed some juice on
(14:28):
the mound, so he looked good. And excuse me, we stayed.
We stayed for about half the game and then finally
headed towards headed towards New York. And yes, there's more
stories coming and all that, but we got Nico here,
and I don't spend all the time time about this
first pitch thing. It was just high cheese. That's it
the headline, High cheese in Wooster. And now we'll get
(14:51):
to Ohio al and get me in the mood here,
Ohio Al for the little mailback. It's all right, all right, Nico,
So we'll get into this the mailbag. These are actual
(15:14):
messages by actual listeners to the show. I was a
little concerned because, as Nico pointed out, I was away
last most of last week. I came in for the
Friday show, but I was away most of the week,
And they always when you're worried, like, well, people are
still going to send emails in Yes, we were fine.
So the first one on the mailbag again, this is
me Ben and Nico from Vancouver, Big Podcast p one.
(15:38):
Mike from Rhode Island says, Ben, do you feel victimized
by Netflix? And then Nico he sent a story here
that Netflix. I think we mentioned this. I thought we
mentioned this in a previous podcast, but maybe not. Anyway,
all these things run together. So Netflix has been sued
by the state of Texas. The officials are claiming that
(15:58):
the streaming service has been quote spying on viewers and
making them addicted to Netflix. And so that's the question
for Mike and Rhode Island is do I feel victimized? No,
of course, somebo are you talking about. That's how every
media company operates, That's how life operates, like It's that's
(16:20):
just the way it is. Like if you're if you're
running a company like Netflix, is it really spying. I
don't know if it's spying you're trying to find Like
when I go on I don't go on Netflix a lot.
I'm not a loyal minion. I'll go on there like
I travel. I downloaded some stuff before I flew, But
I just assume when I go on there, they're they're
(16:40):
picking shows that I want to watch because they have
already kept track of what I've watched, and they know
what I I'm most likely to like, Like, why would
anybody be surprised? Am I crazy an eco to have
this position?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
No, this is one hundred percent. We're being watched twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week. So with
if Netflix wants to monitor and put a suggestion out
there that I should watch Full Swing or the NFL game,
by all means, but we're being watched all the time exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
It's like in like what's the old line? Like, and
I've used this before and I don't have it in
front of you, but like, if you're not paying for
the product, you are the product. And even if you're
paying for it, like in the Internet age, it I
only get really matters. I think you're still still the product.
And it's to me. It's not any different than in
It's kind of like in football. You know, they look
(17:32):
for tendencies in the NFL. Now they call them analytics,
and the old days we used to call them tendencies.
We say, Okay, if it's third down and seven and
the balls at the near hash mark, more likely than
not they're going to throw the ball and you're going
to throw it to the far hash mark. You know,
there's certain tendencies. So yeah, I don't good luck. I
(17:56):
don't know how that's gonna help anybody other than some
politicians in Texas. Scott from Florida writes, and he says, Ben,
on your previous Sunday monologue about phone numbers, please tell
me you got the Associated Press leak way back in
twenty oh three in your early days there on the radio.
(18:18):
I have kept this all these years and I never
look at it, but your monologue brought me back. Check
out the names.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Man.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
You can could certainly make some calls and figure out
what happened to some of those numbers. That's from Scott
in Florida, Nico. Do you remember this story. I don't
know if this was widespread. This is way back. This
goes back twenty almost twenty five years ago. So this
was before the internet, like the internet was like America
(18:50):
Online and stuff like that. It wasn't what it is today.
And they still had these Associated Press wire and the
Associated Press. I would love to know how this happened.
Somebody clicked the wrong desk or the wrong button at
the AP sports desk and accidentally emailed out the entire
rollodex of the Associated Press, which is like, I don't
(19:17):
know how to describe it other than every legendary figure
in sport had their number who was just accidentally sent
out all over the world. And at the time, a
lot of these guys have passed on, but Hank Aaron,
Kareem Abdul Jabbar was part of his legendary figure Sparky Anderson,
(19:38):
the legendary manager from back in the day. I do
have the list in front of me. I have it somewhere, Scott,
you sent me a copy. I appreciate that Yogi Bearra's
number was. I was just it was a ridiculous nig
imagine all of a sudden having the number to every
single legendary figure or in sports, like you just randomly
(20:01):
like call him up, Hey, Terry Bradshaw, What's what's going on? Yeah,
that's that's that's chats. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, that was huge back in the day, right, that
was a huge news story with so many celebrities at
that time being yes, having their phone numbers leaked. And
that's very similar to having your email hated right now,
right and all of a sudden, any emails get leaked,
like John Gruden gets uh uh caught here or or implicated.
(20:31):
But I can I I need to mention something to
your last question there in Texas, Hey, I got to
put a dig out there. Jerry Jones, he knows exactly
what it's like to uh look at the Analympics part
and he got caught with Jamie Fox during that live
stream and he mentioned something on that live stream. So yeah,
in Texas, they they they go in very very particular
(20:55):
with every minute detail, right Jerry.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Jones, Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, that story didn't
have legs. I thought that would have legs. That did not.
That was like a couple of days story and I'm
glad that you got that up. That's Agoing Barry from
Hilton Head, South Carolina, rights in on the Fifth Hour
mail Bag with me Ben and our special guest Nico,
my guest friend of the show, Nico from Vancouver is
(21:21):
in Yo Yo, Ma, Benny and whomever else that's Nico.
Barry it says, what is your position on sending food
back to the kitchen. He also says he's still trying
to get out of South Carolina. The housing market blows chunks. Yeah,
so Barry, My position is, it would have to be
(21:42):
unedible for me to send it back, and anytime, I
cannot stand sending food back because I not that I've
worked in the kitchen, but I've worked with enough people
that have worked at restaurants to know that, depending on
what type of restaurant you're at, there is a very
good chance that if you send food back, the food
(22:02):
that you're going to get back will have somehow been
compromised with contraband. And I don't want to eat contraband
or whatever kind of you know, cooties they put in there.
And so it is, it is the last thing I
would want to do, and if I did do it,
I would have to sweet talk the waiter or something
(22:23):
like that. I can't stand it. And again that's my
position because I just have heard too many horror stories
and seeing too many random things online that I'm like,
oh boy, like what are we doing? What about you, Nigo?
You go out to have a nice meal, Let's say,
like I don't like mushrooms, I'd say they cover my
food with or cover your food with mushrooms. You don't
(22:45):
like mushrooms, what do you do? You make the call, Nico.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, if you send food back to the to the
back of house, you're putting your life in your own hands.
When that food comes back, good luck. And you're absolutely right,
depending on the restaurant. Yeah, that's that's career suicide when
you're going to take a bite of that burger or
something you don't know what's in there.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Now, Yeah, you got one shot. And that's one of
the reasons I get annoyed when we go out to eat,
and I usually eat out, like maybe once a week
or whatever, and you go out to eat and I
need full dedication from the waiter, Nico. And I know
it's kind of cool if you're a waiter not to
write down the order and I delete things, I add
(23:26):
things to my order. And since we, as we've talked about,
I don't send food back, so as an act of kindness,
I would like, I would enjoy if the people involved
would actually write down the order to make sure they
get it right, therefore eliminating or at least limiting the
possibility of me sending the food back because they're going
(23:48):
to get the order right. So that's yeah, that's my
my issue on that. So what else we have? Let's see?
Who do we have? EENI Meeni, Miney mo Lucky Tony
from the Bay Area says, I wanted to put this
on record. I never served in the military and I
am not into that stolen valor blankety blank blank. My
(24:11):
dad is a Marine vett and once on the show
I sang Cadence, but that was just so I could
say puss an ass on the radio and reference Soldier
Field Bears. It says. Now the question, what about Benny
versus the Penny one game early Fridays. Yeah, Tony, it's you.
(24:35):
We're sitting here in May. I'm not I'm not worried
about Benny versus the Penny. I did look at the schedule,
as everyone else did. I was looking at the NFL
schedule like, Wow, that's gonna be very difficult if we
do get the TV show back, because you're gonna have
a Wednesday game. The NFL openers on a Wednesday. You're
gonna have a Thursday game. Rams. I think there's a
(24:56):
a Friday game. I mean it might be a Friday
game and then a Saturday game or a Sunday game.
So but either way, that's that's that's a tough that's
a tough schedule. But I'm glad the Lucky Tony I
missed you. You didn't call on Friday, and I wasn't
in most of the week, so hopefully you'll give his
call at some point. There quite quite the character, Nico
Lucky Tony. I've not met Lucky Tony. He's he's a
(25:19):
real gem, that guy.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah, I've heard him, heard him when he calls in hilarious.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah. Yeah, he's real quick and he's got he's got
some daggers. Alf next up on the mailbag with me,
Ben and our friend Nico. Alf from Bowling's Bar and
Patio in Worcester, says Ben. First off, I'd like to
thank you for taking the time out of your busy
schedule to come all the way across the country to
meet up with some people with whom many have never
(25:46):
so much as called into the show, but have been
entertained by you over the years. You'll you'll never know
how much it means blah blah blah blah blah to
have shared a handshake and some kind words personally. Alf says,
I had a whole big reveal plan with a who
m I game? When I saw you, it all went
out the window. When you gave me a Benny Bear hug.
(26:08):
It made me feel like I was Bella and you
were angry Bill, he says. But seriously, I am one
of those people that just listens, Alf says, I never
call in, and you met each and every one of
us feel important and special. Thank you for introducing me
to others. There says, I'm not the kind of person
that will approach others, but neither of my By the way, Alf,
(26:31):
you know I don't normally do that, and I don't necessarily,
Alf says, have the gift of gab for those I
don't know fair enough. That, combined, Alf says with the
loud atmosphere, made it hard for me to communicate with others.
But it was great to meet fans like Brian from
the West Springfield area that told me that he voted
(26:52):
for me over that Fink ferg dog my words. Also
great to meet Jerry, Andre, Dan to Vito or Nasto,
et cetera. Last, but not least, finally, meeting Coop and Lorena,
along with Missus Maller and Missus Coop are memories that
I will always sherish. Alf says, look forward to hopefully
(27:13):
meeting all of you again, maybe somewhere that the two
of us could carry on a normal conversation and actually
hear most of it and could tell you some of
the million things they wanted to say but forgot fair enough, Alf, Yes,
these things are. It depends where you go. There's a summer, big, summer, small, summer,
medium sized, and there's a lot of ambient noise. It
(27:35):
did not and I talked about this over the weekend, Nico.
But this guy, Mike the Leprechaun. There was a band.
It was an Irish pub in Wooster, and Mike got
on stage. He kicked the band off stage and started
doing a monologue. And there were a bunch of people
drinking beer and whatever, trying to enjoy themselves on a
Saturday night. And they were not just our crowd. There
(27:56):
were other people there and Mike the Leprechaun gets up
there and starts he starts rifting, and it was very awkward.
People are like, what is this guy doing? Was he was?
It was pretty wild. It it was pretty wild. But
it was great to meet Alf and his wife, and
Alf's been a big part of the show for many,
many years, and all the p ones that came out.
(28:18):
It was it was a lot of fun and we
got a good crowd. It was. I was a little
concerned the weather was not good, as I've talked about
it over the weekend here, the rain and whatnot, But
it turned out to be a really good situation in
terms of the crowd that did show up, and everyone
seemed to have a good time. Quang from Ho Chi Minh,
Vietnam Rights Since says Guaranteed human a conundrum is a
(28:39):
highly in tricked. It in tristit confusing or difficult problem
said the man with the microphone with a seemingly impossible solution.
Quang writes in it often refers to a riddle, puzzle
or complex ethical dilemma. He says, chick fils is random.
He says chick fil a cells and eight ounce garbage
(29:02):
garbage garden, herb ranch sauce, squeezable bottle with creamy buttermilk
ranch sauce, et cetera. Is this a conundrum as it
has both a the devil's blood and be your obsessive
love of garlic. Well, it's not a conundrum at all, quaang,
(29:22):
because once you toss the ranch in, I'm out. I
love the garlic and the onion and then the herbs
and all that. That's great. Buttermilk is a relative of
the ranch dressing, so I object all of that. It
is not a conundrum. It is not a quagmire. It's
none of those things. It's an easy pass for me.
(29:44):
It's an easy pass for me there at Chick fil A,
although I did see somewhere that they're gonna have I
think they already have Chick fil A vending machines. How
about that one? Are you gonna I was at the
airport in Boston. I didn't mention. Over the weekend they
had the famous white Castle vending machine.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Nico, Oh, that white Castle vending machine. Nice.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, they had that in in Boston at Logan. I
have not seen the Chick fil A vending machine. It's
still a little difficult for me to think, but you're
gonna put money in and get a nice delicious sandwich
out of a vending machine like a Chick fil A sandwich.
And are those vending machines gonna be open on Sunday?
(30:32):
What do you think You think they'll be open on
Sunday or no?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Well, I bet you that vending machine for Chick fil
A is probably gonna be better than the vending machine
that you have at the Fox Sports office there for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Well yeah, yeah, well, Nico, it'll be newer than forty
years so that's a classic, like thirty five or forty
year old vening machine that we have. We haven't worked,
but yeah, I don't know the whole event machine thing.
That's a There's a couple of things in my life.
When I was a kid, food trucks. It was always
(31:07):
terrible food, and now it's become designer food. Like now
food trucks are where the top culinary people go and
develop their craft, and food trucks, I assume it's like
that in Vancouver. I know it's like that in la
where we do the show from where like the really
top restauranteurs that make these amazing weird food dishes are
(31:32):
often in food trucks because it's cheaper. And when I
was growing up, it was like those are the worst man.
They didn't want to eat it a food truck. And
that's changed. But also vending machines. I feel like vending
machines have changed. Like it used to be just put
a couple of back. In the old days, you put
a couple of quarters in, you get a bag of
chips or a candy bar. And now they've got all
(31:52):
these exotic vending machines. You can get all kinds of wow.
So I don't trust it, though, Nico, I don't have
a vending machine.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Many machines have changed. But back in our day, Ben,
what do you mean couple dollars, we'd be putting a
coat hanger in the back through that big slot, trying
to grab stuff from the back. Well, we'd have a
friend trying to shake it to get your stuff out
from the front.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Oh yeah, it was. It was a three man operation.
You get one guy in the back, one on the side,
and then one in the front and you'd all be
shaking it and shake, rattle and roll. Absolutely, that's that's funny. Uh.
Fer Dog in Fullerton writes, and he says, Hello, Ben
and friend of the show, that's Nico uh Freguard says,
I've told you before, I don't listen to your show
(32:36):
when you're not there, but I'll have to. I'll have
to let you know I listened each and every day
you were gone this week. I was listening from eleven
pm Pacific to eleven oh one pm every night, like
a true p one should. You're welcome and well, thank you,
thank you for that solid one minute for dog. I'm
glad that you got to hear the open. He also says,
(32:58):
why do you even try to small talk with Anthony
and Louisiana. You know he only sees you as an
obstacle in his path to flirt with Lorena. Either you
should let him go straight to Lorena or make it
a game to see how long you can keep the
conversation going before he rudely interrupts you to say, Hey, Lorena,
(33:22):
I haven't been timing your calls with him yet, but
you haven't lasted very long. What do you think. Well,
I'm glad you brought this up for a dog, because
it has been my goal with Anthony to try to
see how long I can keep him from saying Hey, Lorena,
(33:43):
and the sound of his voice you can tell when
he's on the air how disappointed he is when I
will not allow him to just ask Lorena a hello
question and then flirt with there. He gets genuinely annoyed.
And it was his dream the other night because you
not only had Lorena, Coop was out and so our
(34:04):
friend Brie was there, and so Anthony was like, oh
my god, I got the beautiful Brie. I've got the
amazing Lorena. This was like a dream come true for him.
And then of course he had to put up with
my fat ass and then eventually he just he says
hellone and he just hangs up. It's very odd to me.
It's very odd that that whole dynamic. I don't know
(34:25):
what else to say, but very odd. But anyway, Ryan
from Shrewsbury writes in in the Commonwealth. He says, hey,
Ben and guest, that would be Nico. It was a
pleasure meeting you on Saturday Ben at Bowlands in Worcester.
I have not missed a pod episode over three years.
(34:46):
A big fan of the best of version of the
Overnight Show. Anyway, he says, no question for me this week,
just said he had a good time and all that.
Hope to do it again with his wife. Yeah, I
want to thank you, right, I was hoping we get
to talk a little bit longer. Ryan left somewhat early,
but he was there with his wife. They had gone
to a wedding. I remember Ryan, you had said you
(35:06):
had a wedding. I think it was that that day
or the day before. So you guys were running around
and then the big pain in the behind and the
weather sucked and all that. And I'm happy that I
got to meet you. And I'm sure we'll be back
at some point, and you know, we're somewhere around there
and you can come by and say loo. Although we're
not going to be doing three of these things in
a row. That one and then that's it. That should
(35:29):
be all for the weekend, maybe one and a half.
That's that's about it. Cal from the OC and so
col writes and he says, hey, Ben, and if you're
with anybody whoever, that is the Washington Nationals have gone
(35:50):
viral and I have to know, are you interested in
going to d C to have their newest treat at
the concession Stance. And then he heard about this Nico
they started selling apparently this week. According to cal shoestring
fries made out of crispy fried hot dogs and paired
(36:12):
with Chipotle ranch sauce. Well, I don't need the ranch dressing.
I've been clear about that. Yeah, it's it's fries made
out of hot dogs.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So that sounds absolutely delicious.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, it's I don't know what would be wrong with it.
It's Burger King didn't I don't know if they still do.
Didn't they have chicken fries, fries made out of little
chicken tenders or something like that. I believe they had
to have.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Burger King had those chicken fries. They had those, and
it's changed now in Canada at least, and now they
had those tiny delicious onion rings back in the day.
That's changed.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, yeah, I look this does not look I'm looking
at at a photo here. I mean it's I don't
need the ranch. I can substitute that alvers, like a
barbecue or something like that. I don't necessarily need it.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Uh, yeah, I'm looking at it. It looks like it
has like a Chipotle mayo or something. With the picture
I'm seeing. Yeah, oh, they put they put a little
fresh Parsley on it.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Oh this looks ah, you're in let's let's go. Yeah,
there he goes booking a trip right now. Yeah, see that,
that's the only reason to go to a Nationals game.
You could just go and look the other way and
just eat the eat the fries, their shoes, their shoestring
fried hot dog pieces, and uh yeah, it'll look bad.
I'd eat that cow, I'd go, I'd go. I don't
(37:41):
want the sauce, but I you know you can have
You're not my saucenico. I'm good on that. Randy, Randy
from the Bay Rights in of the mail bag, he says, Ben,
do you feel bad for Jake Paul not being allowed
to attend w w E events? All right, First of all, Randy, Uh,
I don't know Jake Paul, I don't know Logan Paul.
(38:04):
I just annoyed by what I know of them, So
I don't feel bad for them. And this is all
part of their shtick. And I don't know what happened.
I'm not an expert on relations between Jake Paul and
Dana White. I know there was some kind of beef
that happened between those guys, and I'm not sure exactly
how deep it goes. I just know from the people
(38:25):
I deal with in my world that know Dana White.
Of all the people you don't want to get on
the bad side of, Dana White is in like the
top one percent of people you don't want to be
on the bad side of, because he will mess you
up if he has the opportunity. From what I've heard,
So I don't feel bad. Do you follow any of this, Nico,
(38:47):
any of the Paul Brothers or wrestling or any of
that stuff. Are you in any of that world?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Well, obviously there's a huge fight put on by Jake
Paul tomorrow will Saturday, So it depends when you listen
to this podcast already come out or you haven't seen
it just yet. But also the fact that Dana White,
he looks like Kingpin from Spider Man. I don't know
if I don't think that's the guy you want to
be messing around with. Yes, obviously he has a video
(39:15):
out there. He throws punches. Whether you're a female or
a male, he will take care of you.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Well, he's equal opportunity Dana White. Yeah. I again, I
don't know Randy much about that world. I'm happy that
Apparently both Jake Paul and Logan Paul have fully monetized
their social media celebrities, so good for them. Reggie from
(39:42):
Detroit writes in on the mail bag and he says, Ben,
are you going to do a six line salute when
you get back on the radio for the Cars for
Kids jingle? Which will be going away? He says, and
it is apparently true. Who Now, I don't even know
if this is a thing you know about Nico being
(40:03):
in Vancouver. It's a very famous I'm assuming you've heard
it somewhere along the way, even if it's not on
radio in Vancouver. But the Cars for Kids jingle.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Kars cars for Kids.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yes, yes, exactly exactly. They give out the number eight
seven seven Cars for Kids, whatever it is. And so
this has now the story this week, and it is true, Reggie.
That's the state of California. The geniuses and the People's
Republic of California have now pulled the plug on the
(40:38):
Cars for Kids jingle. This is after a lawsuit. So
this guy, this goes back five years twenty twenty one.
This guy who lives in California sued the charity, claiming
that he donated his car after hearing repeatedly the jingle
is just a total thing that gets in your brain
(41:00):
and you just it's a mind worm. You can't get
it out. And and he thought it would help underprivileged
children in California. Well, it turns out that the corner
of this lawsuit cars for kids. It actually helps out
kids in the New York, New Jersey area. It's like
an orthodox charity in that area, and that most of
(41:24):
the money goes to that. And so anyway, they the court,
the judge in California said that they violated the California
law as I understand it, because it's unfair the way
the song goes, the jingle and all that they failed
to disclose that the donations primarily will not go to
(41:45):
kids in California. So they have thirty days, I guess
less than that now to get rid of the jingle.
And it's one of those things. When I got into
radio nico I, it was a detail end of the jingles.
There were radio stations that still played jingles. And I
(42:05):
love jingles. I think they're the coolest thing in the world.
And if I owned a radio station, I would have
jingles my childhood. And I'm gonna date myself with some
of this, but I remember certain advertisers. For example, if
I and I'll say this randomly on the radio, so
(42:26):
I'll say pop pop phizz fizz. Oh, what a relief
it is. That's a commercial from when I was a kid, right,
Or I wish I was an Oscar Meyer reader, you know.
And that's another jingle from a commercial when I was
a kid. Or I don't want to grow up, I
want to be a Toys r Us kid. These are
(42:46):
all jingles from my youth. I am an older dude
now and I still remember all of those jingles and
I can recite them. I love them. They're wonderful, and
for some reason we got away from them, and that
Cars for Kids thing was the last. I don't want
to say the last, but it was really the last
(43:08):
longest running jingle which is an earworm and your brain
just replays it involuntarily and all that. Do you have
a favorite jingle, Nico, and you are these the same
jingles you heard in Canada or you have different jingles
that you have that we don't have here in Vancouver. Yeah,
you know.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
I got to talk about this Cars for Kids because
there was two key things that we learned here. First
thing is this lawsuit's been going on since twenty twenty one,
which I found shocking, so for five years. The second
thing is this company for cars for kids. They're taking
in forty five million dollars annually. Who is donating these
(43:48):
types of cars for them to take in forty million dollars?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I did not see that. That is a massive That
is a massive money. But it's a great what a
great racket because like even a total beater car that
had nothing left, it's still the metal, and like you
can you can make money from parts of the car
even I don't. People can donate cars that aren't drivable,
I guess, and all that stuff. But yeah, forty five
million is wow. That is next level. That is uh,
(44:17):
that is outstanding. My god. All right, moving on from that,
what else do we have? I'm trying to think. I'm
trying to think of there any other jingle? I use one,
you know, I use one the other night in Nico.
It's not really a jingle, but I guess it kind
of is Recalla.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
That was Or how about the best part of waiting?
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, bolder in your cup? There you go. I love it.
I love it back in the nineties, there was this
place called Chili's and they had in the US anyway,
if they had it in Canada, but they had. I
want my baby back, Baby bag Baby. That's one of
the all time great ones too, all right, I love it.
(44:57):
I love it. Good email question by Reggie in Detroit.
I know we're going long here, so we do a
couple more with our buddy Nico on the mail bag.
He says, Hey, Benny, are you gonna go thumbs up?
Or this is Mike from Las Vegas. He says thumbs
up or thumbs down on torts the Golden Knights. I
(45:18):
saw this, so the Golden Knights law. They beat the
Ducks to advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs last week
and then violated Stanley Cup media protocols with John Tortorella,
who got fined one hundred thousand dollars, the coach of
the team in Vancouver or not Vancouver and used to
coach in Vancouver in Vegas and also according to the
(45:44):
according to Mike here, they lost a second round draft
pick the Golden the Vegas Golden Knights for violating media regulations.
That is intense. I'll go thumbs I love Torts, my
favorite hockey coach. We sucked at a time you cannot suck.
That's a John Tortorella quote, one of my all time
grave favorite quotes from anyone other than like Tomulus Sword
(46:07):
or something like that, or the late Lee Ilia. Yeah,
it's a big though. The NHL has always complained my
entire life, Nico. The people in hockey have complained. They
have said, listen, we need more media attention and we're
not getting enough media. And I know things have changed.
The media is different now than it used to be
(46:28):
when we were growing up, but it's still a big deal.
It's still more people pay attention to the mainstream media
than people like to give credit to. And to not
send the players out and not open the locker room
and all that. Yeah, you can't. You're contractually obligated. Whether
you like this or not. It's in every standard contract.
The Boiler play to these contracts. These guys have to
(46:50):
talk to the media. And I love Torts and all that,
and he's my guy. You know, you just gotta you know,
you gotta do it. You don't have to say anything.
You can just give cliche answers, but you got to
at least make some kind of effort there.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
So yeah, he could have just easily said I'm here,
so I don't get fine, But did you see that
Mitch Marner goal in the first period? I think it
was I don't know if you've seen it.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
But yeah, wow yeah wo. How And if if Vegas
ends up winning, are they going to have to send
to our friends in Toronto? If Mitch Marner is on
the you know this team and they end up winning,
what's gonna happen to the Maple Leaf fans? What do
you think they're going to do over there?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Not that that's going to be a riot, they're gonna
be Yeah, And they hired probably well right now, one
of the worst gms possible to tag along with Matt Sundeen.
So this is not looking good for the Leaves.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, that would be well. I remember when he played
for the Leaves. It was all wow, this guy's yeah,
you just can't get it done in the big moment
and all that, and there most pretty much everyone with
the Maple least my entire life. That's always not that
I'm a hockey guy, Nico. Occasionally I'll occasionally, you know,
watch hockey, and it's always the same arguments like, well,
these guys, you know, you put on that maple sweater
(48:01):
and all of a sudden you choke in big games,
all right, Sam from Kentucky writes in he says, Ben,
are you ready for the World Cup? No? I'm not.
I need to get ready. I actually I will pay
attention to the World Cup. I know, Nico, you're you're
a soccer guy for football as everyone else calls it.
Your son's a big star, and it's gonna be a
great young guy making his way through the soccer world.
(48:24):
But Sam sent a couple of stories here, so I
think this is actually perfect for you, Nico, and we'll
see you have some takes on this. I have some takes.
So the World Cup has confirmed, according to Sam, he
sent me a couple of these stories, the World Cup
has confirmed a super Bowl style halftime show at the final,
and they're gonna have. According to this, Shakira, Madonna and
(48:48):
several other huge name artists will be performing at the
World Cup final. How long is halftime at the World Cup?
Is it longer than the Super Bowl or is it shorter?
I don't even know. I have no idea how long
that is. Say it's the first ever halftime show in
World Cup final history. So is that true if they've
(49:10):
never done that before.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
No, this is also the first year where they're doing
commercial breaks. They're doing water breaks on the field, on
the pitch and so that they can monetize on the
commercial breaks. So it's never really happened before ever.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Yeah, I mean that was always the argument, right, was
that that was the thing that really hurt from a
TV standpoint the sport because they didn't have the traditional
built in TV timeouts like football and basketball, they just
have built in time Baseball has timeouts. Every half inning,
there's a timeout, but they don't have that in in soccer.
(49:44):
Sam also sent this in he says World Cup ticket
to one game. He says, it was revealed that it
would cost a Haitian soccer fan almost twenty five years
of salary to attend the opening game the World Cup
against Scotland. Twenty five years of salary. Oh my god,
(50:09):
man alive, are you gonna be able to go Nicote
any of these games? I know your son's obviously a
big soccer guy and making his way through that world
and all that. I guess there's games all over, right,
It's not just on the West coast. It'll be games
in New York and Boston. So I guess you can
pick your poison where you want to go, right.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Yeah, there's going to be everywhere. In Mexico they have
three three cities out there that are going to host games.
But no the amount of people that are going to
be out there, and obviously we know with this being
the global sport, even though in the NFL says otherwise,
But yeah, there's going to be so many people, and
too many people create too many problems.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
That is true. That is that is true. And you
can sit in your home on a nice sofa and
have as many drinks and snacks as you want, you
can watch and you know, have some fun and all that.
I am looking forward to the World Cup because I
know there's going to be a lot of I always
look for the story within the story, Like the soccer
stuff's cool and all that, but it's really about what
(51:08):
goes on around the games. That's always the stuff that
makes for good talk radio. So much like in previous
World Cups, when we've talked about the different storylines where
somebody inevitably will piss off an entire country and then
there'll be that story and then the you know, coach
will say something stupid and then that'll be good for
a couple of days. And so so that's all good.
(51:32):
Eric from Tampa writes in on the mail bag. He says, hey, hey, Ben,
are you concerned if you go to France about the deer?
And he of course. I don't know why he phrased
it this way, because I've never been to France and
I'm not concerned about deer. But according to police in
France Nico, they are now warning drivers to be on
(51:56):
high alert for drunk deer that have been over indulging
infirmated fermented fruits around France. It's that time of the year,
and I guess these deer are getting hammered and they're
going out and they're walking in traffic. What could possibly
go wrong? What could possibly go wrong with that? Yeah?
(52:20):
I don't I don't know what else to add to that.
That's that's outs Watch out for Bambi, Yeah, exactly. Disney
can remake Bambie do that? Why not? What else we have?
Eric in Ohios has been it was great. Meaning you
in Kentucky a couple of weeks back. I hope you'll
come back soon here we can go to a Reds game.
(52:41):
Sounds like you and Robbie and the gang had a
good time. Yeah. I have a lot of fun with
Robbie and Queen rocks In and Tommy from Atlanta. And
I can't close the deal. Neil and his son that
was That was a very good time, he says, Ben.
I know you work in Sherman Oaks. Have you ever
run into Britney Spears? No? Oh, I have not.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
I did see this story in Nico. This is a
great story from page six and TMZ this week. The
iconic singer Britney Spears not iconic anymore. But she got
into a I don't know what to describe this. She
made a hullablue at a bar called the Blue Dog
(53:22):
Tavern in Sherman Oaks, California. And I do not want
to exaggerate this, Nico. This bar is roughly a block
and a half from where I've worked the last almost
thirty years of my life. It's right down the street.
It's literally a block away from the Fox Sports radio
compound there the iHeartMedia building in Sherman Oaks. And I
(53:44):
just love the fact that Britney Spears, who was at
least for a couple of years, the most famous female
singer that America had in that age group. And she's
out there at this little dive bar in Sherman Oaks
and she I guess, she walked in with a guy
and a gal and they walked around the restaurant. She
(54:06):
was holding a knife. At one point she lit a
cigarette near the door, which of course is illegal everywhere
in California. And then they said her table looked like
a toddler had been there, with food everywhere. It was
just a mess, and all that. She's obviously got a
few issues, more than a few issues and all that.
But my goodness, Britney Spears, that's crazy that area and
(54:31):
Nico will have to get you in there. At some point.
Right above where we broadcast is this neighborhood called bell Air,
which is a famous La neighborhood. A lot of the
Subbys live, and I guess they're so bored where they live.
They all come down and shop and hang out at
the bars and restaurants right around where we do the
show from. And it's really wild at night because a
lot of these guys have these exotic race cars and
(54:54):
they'll drive around when I'm doing the show in the
middle of the night, and they'll race down Ventura Boulevard
and se pal Buta and and but you'll see him
like the Whole Foods Market or you know, different restaurants
around time. But I've not run into Britney Spears. I'd
love to have her on the podcast though, if she'd
come on. I mean, she's probably got some amazing stories
(55:15):
to tell about her situation. All right, On that note,
I think we'll get out. We've gone along here, Nico.
You know your time is very viable. Thank you for
being part of this. I wanted to get you on here.
We rotate some folks through the mailbag every Sunday here
and it's been great. You were You've been a big
friend of the show, Nico, and I wish you best
of luck with your son. I know he's he's cranking up.
(55:37):
He's coming back right he's on the injured list right now.
But we'll be back in a couple of weeks and
then back out traveling all over the place. I imagined
the soccer events and whatnot, so exciting times with that,
and thank you for listening and all that. We appreciate
your time.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Thank you Malan militia.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Outstanding and we will be back tonight, regular week, no
day days off. I will be there on the radio
show eleven pm in the West, two am in the
East all week long as we break down the NBA
playoffs and everything else. And we will catch you later
as Dick and Dayton would say bye bye later.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Skater
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 sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 3 (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 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me Ben
Mahlor and a special surprise appearance by who. If you've
read the description of this podcast, you already know, but
if not, you're in for a treat. On this the
Sunday edition, the seventeenth day of the month of May,
(00:51):
and we will get to the mail bag in the all.
But we are joined this week in our revolving rotation
of celebrities our special friend of the show, and if
you have been listening over the last few years, you
know who this guy is. He was part of one
of the big events that we had in recent years.
From Vancouver, we welcome in Nico. Now you might remember
(01:16):
from the we had a great trip to Canada and
visited beautiful British Columbia and that was all possible by
our friend Nico. Hello, Nico, how are you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
My man number one? Yes, I am back. How was
everyone today?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Everyone's great, Nico, and Nico. You're part of what I
call the silent majority of the show, Nico, because you're
you listen to the podcast, right, You don't stay up
all night and all that, but you listen to the podcast.
You've been loyal Meani into the show and you're part
of the backbone of the show and we appreciate that.
And everything is good here and on your end, everything
(01:55):
all right, Yeah, everything is great.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
You know we obviously the Malon Militia missed you last
week with Brian No filling in, but he held it
down doing a little bit of a strict tease with
the NFL schedule a release which I thought was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, yeah, I know. The schedule thing was. You know,
that has gone next level in our lifetime, Nico, because
you know, I know how your and how old I am.
In our lifetime when we were younger, that was never
nobody cared. But now it's like it's next level. So
and you will be with us for this entire episode
before we get to the Mailbag, though I did want
to put the finishing touches on a jam packed weekend
(02:35):
of the Mallard Travelogue, which, as I put it out
on the Friday episode, I planned on doing all of
this initially in my head when I was flying back
to California from from the East Coast, I was like,
I'm gonna do all this. I'll put this in the
Friday podcast, and then I'll have other things to talk
about on Saturday and Sunday. And yet here we are
(02:57):
on the Sunday podcast and I'm still telling stories Nico.
I have. There's that much stuff that happened Nico while
I was away, so I'll continue with that. And for
those of you keeping score at home, the we mentioned
this on the Saturday podcast, but the Wu Socks game
was rained out the Triple A team of the Red Sox,
(03:18):
and somehow that turned into a bonus episode of the
Fifth Hour, which is this episode, which is the mail Bag,
which is in my part of it, not Nico, of course,
Nico's He's a lean, mean wrecking machine, but my part
of it middle aged man abuses his digestive system while
(03:39):
chasing some kind of bizarre minor league glory now, as
you know, Nico, I am a glutton for punishment, and
I ended up spending I don't get a limited amount
of time off, and I spent part of my time
racing through the backwoods of Massachusetts and out into the
boondocks to go to a minor league baseball game. And
(04:00):
I might need some kind of medical intervention or something
medical it is the right word. But I was legitimately
bummed out a last last Saturday, I got the game
got washed out. I guess two saturdays ago now a
game got washed out, and I had mentally prepared myself
(04:22):
for the ceremonial first pitch, and I was like excited.
I practiced a little bit and got out there, tossed
the ball around with with my my brother, and I
was like, all right, this is exciting, and you know,
this is when you do talk radio. This is an
elite athletic opportunity to throw out the first pitch. And
I spent a good amount of time preparing myself and
(04:46):
I was replaying old clips and for me, I want
you to know, Nico, this was like Game seven of
the World Series or or the you know, you know,
if your baseball guy. But there the the super Bowl
whatever it might be. You know what I'm saying, feel me.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
On that, yeah, one percent exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So so instead we got the rain. I was like
a bummer, you know. And we went to this place
called Bowlwins out in Worcester that night, and and while
the Malard militia was carrying on like a traveling carnival,
and with Mike the Leprechaun, who informed me and he
was like he was, He's an Irish guy. He drinks
a lot, you know, it's the cliche, and he he
(05:24):
lives up to it. And so Mike was pounding some
alcohol and he informed me, say, hey, the Wu Socks
still want you to throw out the first pitch on Sunday. Well, okay,
that sounded wonderful in theory. It was horrifying in practice
because at this point in time, I like to shut
things down. I limit these social events. It's very bizarre
(05:47):
because I love doing the malor meat and Grease. I
have a lot of fun hearing the story of people
that are fans of the show and listening and finding
things out about you that that are listeners. And then
at some point my social battery it like it just
shuts down. It gets repossessed by the bank and then
that's it. And so I had done back to back
(06:08):
Friday and Saturday, and I was like exhausted. Now I'm
not paving a road, I'm not building a building, but
I was exhausted. I was spiritually depleted. And I'm you know,
living off airport snacks which I don't eat much of,
and I don't get a lot of sleep, and some
kind of weird cupcakes that I thought looked good that
I purchased at the on the North End, at the
(06:29):
bakery there, and you know, making poor decisions, you know,
those late night hours. So nonetheless, I was like, well,
this is an opportunity. I th' get made of these
opportunities to throw out the first pitch. This is the
fourth opportunity that I've had in my lifetime. Lancaster JetHawks,
which was an a ball team that's now out of
business in California. The Bakersfield Blaze, which is also out
(06:52):
of business now, the Inland Empire sixty six ers, which
I don't even know if they're still around. I think
they still are. That was the last one, and now
I can add the the technically the Red Sox Triple
A team they're the Worcester Red Sox, but everyone calls
them the WU Socks. So that's like four different minor
(07:14):
league teams. At least half of them have gone out
of business, which is not good news for the WU Sox.
And I'm basically the Crash Davis of ceremonial baseball appearances.
So I was like, ah, you know, we we got
to do this. I I'd planned to travel down to
visit my my brother on Sunday very early, so we improvised.
I canceled. I had plane, not plane tickets, I trained tickets.
(07:36):
I was gonna take the take the Amtrak from Boston
down to New York. And I was like, ah, we
rented a car. I went to Logan, rented a car,
stuffed all our luggage. And my wife loves to pack,
and Nico, you've met my wife. She she believes in
moving pretty much everything that we have. When we travel, it's, uh,
(07:57):
it's tough. I mean, you you travel a lot, and
I'm assuming you travel a little lighter than I travel.
But we'd take the whole house when we go anywhere.
It's wild.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
You got to you gotta prepare for the unpredictable, right.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
No, but you're supposed to be able to go lean
and mean, I thought, I look at all these people
on YouTube and they all have like one backpack and
they travel for a month. And I'm like, I got
multiple suitcases, I got backpacks. I don't even know what
I have anyway, So we had all this stuff and
we packed up the rental car at at Logan drove
(08:30):
out to Worcester, which is a decent drive from where
we were, and in it it was kind of you
know what it was. It was like we were we
were like fugitives on the run. We drove back to
Worcester less than twelve hours after leaving the event that
we did, and it was like it felt less like
transportation more like an endurance challenge sponsored by like rental
(08:54):
cars and some shaky decision making. So we got to
this minor league ballpark called Polar Park and waited for
Mike the Leprechaun, who took a few pictures with me
and some other random people, and then suddenly I was
escorted backstage at this baseball theater, beautiful ballpark in central Massachusetts.
(09:17):
Side entrance concrete tunnels, wandering through random corridors, the bowels
of the stadium. There were mascots wandering around waving at me,
and I didn't know. I knew one of the mascots.
I didn't know the other three or four mascots. And
there anyway, we're walking around like there's six or seven
(09:37):
mascots here. How many mascots can one minor league baseball
team have? And it was like a low budget horror
film at that point, I'm like, wow, they keep popping
up these mascots. And then came the moment. So I
got out to the field. I was there for like
maybe five minutes. I chatted up a couple of people.
I was then told I had to go out to
the mountain. So I was handed to baseball. I was
summoned towards the mound like the aging gunslinger being called
(10:02):
out for one final duel. Who knows this might be it?
And I got out to that mount and I delivered
what I will unofficially officially describe as high gas, a
right handed Eraaldis Chapman experience. The radar gun may never
recover from that pitch. And now certain critics, namely this
(10:25):
guy Matt Kay, who was at the game, claimed he
sent me an email. He claimed the pitch was terrible,
which is completely false. That's a disinformation campaign by Matt Kay.
That's deep state propagated. The pitch had movement, and it's
the term. Think of it like a charcouterie board where
(10:47):
I served up nothing but high cheese. And you know
baseball slanging, right, you're aware, Nico. You know baseball slang.
High cheese is a fastball thrown at the very top
of the strike. So is it not right at the
top high cheese.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
High cheese? You know what it is, Bill Ben. But
New York Mets, they're looking at you right now. They're
wanting to sign you to their roster. They need you.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I'm available, and listen, I'll hang out. All I get.
All I want is to hang out with mister Met
when I'm not pitching, I can. I can go down
and do some stick with mister Mett. So I threw
this high cheese, Nico, upper part of the zone and
right there, boom, speed, precision, very difficult to hit. I'm
getting I'm getting my balls busted by these guys. And
(11:34):
I got to point out also, I considered that, and
I didn't promote this prior to the fact that this happened.
I had mentioned my battery was at zero. I didn't
have a lot of sleep. I had some digestive instability
that we don't need to get into on the podcast.
But considering all of that, this was like my Willis
Reid game. In fact, it was better than Willis Reed.
(11:54):
This was my my Michael Jordan flu game. It was
the Mallard gastro Intestinal Classic is what it was there
in Worcester. And my favorite part was, though it wasn't
even the pitch, I got to meet a bunch of
other random listeners by completing total action. I was not
supposed to be at this game. We didn't really promote it.
(12:14):
There was no organized event, just some random p ones
materialized out of thin air. Baseball loving Woodland creatures. We
had Jerik from Rhode Island who drives a truck. He's
a big Yankee fan. They were playing the Yankees Triple
A affiliate. Ryan from Rhode Island came by d Mack
who has a basketball phenom son much like Nico. We'll
(12:38):
talk about his son. He's got a son that's doing
great in soccer. It's gonna be going to the next
level in that sport. Brian from Worcester came by fellow
member of the tribe who also was there at the
Saturday event that we did, and so just real quick
to I mean, I'm going long here, I apologize. Polar
Park really is a gem. Got just to paint the
(12:59):
picture for a blow listeners. It's Central mass so it's
an old town. A lot of history there going back
to the American Revolution for God's sakes, and rustic brick
buildings beyond the outfield train tracks every hour I was
told the train rolls past center field. You had that
old industrial New England energy. Just beautiful, the kind of
(13:25):
way that makes you want to buy a scorecard and
complain about you know, some random you know, d H
or something like that. And so the wusas I mentioned,
they were playing the Yankees Triple A team, the rail Riders.
I did not know that was a thing from Scranton, PA.
Scranton Wilkesbury, PA. And Anthony Volpi, who made one of
(13:47):
my favorite plays in World Series history when he was
playing shortstop for the Yankees and booted a ball in
Game five, fifth inning meltdown against the Dodgers a couple
of years back. Volpi went zero for four and continues
to be the most aggressively average to below average Yankee
suspect of his generation. He actually got called right back
(14:08):
up to the Yankees after this game, so I guess
they must have been really impressed by that. Oh for
four the Yankees that they called him back up. And
then George Lombard Junior, the third base suspect, looked very human.
He played in the game. The guy actually looked to me,
and I didn't stay for the whole game. The guy
looked really good. Elmer Rodriguez, who showed some juice on
(14:28):
the mound, so he looked good. And excuse me, we stayed.
We stayed for about half the game and then finally
headed towards headed towards New York. And yes, there's more
stories coming and all that, but we got Nico here,
and I don't spend all the time time about this
first pitch thing. It was just high cheese. That's it
the headline, High cheese in Wooster. And now we'll get
(14:51):
to Ohio al and get me in the mood here,
Ohio Al for the little mailback. It's all right, all right, Nico,
So we'll get into this the mailbag. These are actual
(15:14):
messages by actual listeners to the show. I was a
little concerned because, as Nico pointed out, I was away
last most of last week. I came in for the
Friday show, but I was away most of the week,
And they always when you're worried, like, well, people are
still going to send emails in Yes, we were fine.
So the first one on the mailbag again, this is
me Ben and Nico from Vancouver, Big Podcast p one.
(15:38):
Mike from Rhode Island says, Ben, do you feel victimized
by Netflix? And then Nico he sent a story here
that Netflix. I think we mentioned this. I thought we
mentioned this in a previous podcast, but maybe not. Anyway,
all these things run together. So Netflix has been sued
by the state of Texas. The officials are claiming that
(15:58):
the streaming service has been quote spying on viewers and
making them addicted to Netflix. And so that's the question
for Mike and Rhode Island is do I feel victimized? No,
of course, somebo are you talking about. That's how every
media company operates, That's how life operates, like It's that's
(16:20):
just the way it is. Like if you're if you're
running a company like Netflix, is it really spying. I
don't know if it's spying you're trying to find Like
when I go on I don't go on Netflix a lot.
I'm not a loyal minion. I'll go on there like
I travel. I downloaded some stuff before I flew, But
I just assume when I go on there, they're they're
(16:40):
picking shows that I want to watch because they have
already kept track of what I've watched, and they know
what I I'm most likely to like, Like, why would
anybody be surprised? Am I crazy an eco to have
this position?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
No, this is one hundred percent. We're being watched twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week. So with
if Netflix wants to monitor and put a suggestion out
there that I should watch Full Swing or the NFL game,
by all means, but we're being watched all the time exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
It's like in like what's the old line? Like, and
I've used this before and I don't have it in
front of you, but like, if you're not paying for
the product, you are the product. And even if you're
paying for it, like in the Internet age, it I
only get really matters. I think you're still still the product.
And it's to me. It's not any different than in
It's kind of like in football. You know, they look
(17:32):
for tendencies in the NFL. Now they call them analytics,
and the old days we used to call them tendencies.
We say, Okay, if it's third down and seven and
the balls at the near hash mark, more likely than
not they're going to throw the ball and you're going
to throw it to the far hash mark. You know,
there's certain tendencies. So yeah, I don't good luck. I
(17:56):
don't know how that's gonna help anybody other than some
politicians in Texas. Scott from Florida writes, and he says, Ben,
on your previous Sunday monologue about phone numbers, please tell
me you got the Associated Press leak way back in
twenty oh three in your early days there on the radio.
(18:18):
I have kept this all these years and I never
look at it, but your monologue brought me back. Check
out the names.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Man.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
You can could certainly make some calls and figure out
what happened to some of those numbers. That's from Scott
in Florida, Nico. Do you remember this story. I don't
know if this was widespread. This is way back. This
goes back twenty almost twenty five years ago. So this
was before the internet, like the internet was like America
(18:50):
Online and stuff like that. It wasn't what it is today.
And they still had these Associated Press wire and the
Associated Press. I would love to know how this happened.
Somebody clicked the wrong desk or the wrong button at
the AP sports desk and accidentally emailed out the entire
rollodex of the Associated Press, which is like, I don't
(19:17):
know how to describe it other than every legendary figure
in sport had their number who was just accidentally sent
out all over the world. And at the time, a
lot of these guys have passed on, but Hank Aaron,
Kareem Abdul Jabbar was part of his legendary figure Sparky Anderson,
(19:38):
the legendary manager from back in the day. I do
have the list in front of me. I have it somewhere, Scott,
you sent me a copy. I appreciate that Yogi Bearra's
number was. I was just it was a ridiculous nig
imagine all of a sudden having the number to every
single legendary figure or in sports, like you just randomly
(20:01):
like call him up, Hey, Terry Bradshaw, What's what's going on? Yeah,
that's that's that's chats. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, that was huge back in the day, right, that
was a huge news story with so many celebrities at
that time being yes, having their phone numbers leaked. And
that's very similar to having your email hated right now,
right and all of a sudden, any emails get leaked,
like John Gruden gets uh uh caught here or or implicated.
(20:31):
But I can I I need to mention something to
your last question there in Texas, Hey, I got to
put a dig out there. Jerry Jones, he knows exactly
what it's like to uh look at the Analympics part
and he got caught with Jamie Fox during that live
stream and he mentioned something on that live stream. So yeah,
in Texas, they they they go in very very particular
(20:55):
with every minute detail, right Jerry.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Jones, Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, that story didn't
have legs. I thought that would have legs. That did not.
That was like a couple of days story and I'm
glad that you got that up. That's Agoing Barry from
Hilton Head, South Carolina, rights in on the Fifth Hour
mail Bag with me Ben and our special guest Nico,
my guest friend of the show, Nico from Vancouver is
(21:21):
in Yo Yo, Ma, Benny and whomever else that's Nico.
Barry it says, what is your position on sending food
back to the kitchen. He also says he's still trying
to get out of South Carolina. The housing market blows chunks. Yeah,
so Barry, My position is, it would have to be
(21:42):
unedible for me to send it back, and anytime, I
cannot stand sending food back because I not that I've
worked in the kitchen, but I've worked with enough people
that have worked at restaurants to know that, depending on
what type of restaurant you're at, there is a very
good chance that if you send food back, the food
(22:02):
that you're going to get back will have somehow been
compromised with contraband. And I don't want to eat contraband
or whatever kind of you know, cooties they put in there.
And so it is, it is the last thing I
would want to do, and if I did do it,
I would have to sweet talk the waiter or something
(22:23):
like that. I can't stand it. And again that's my
position because I just have heard too many horror stories
and seeing too many random things online that I'm like,
oh boy, like what are we doing? What about you, Nigo?
You go out to have a nice meal, Let's say,
like I don't like mushrooms, I'd say they cover my
food with or cover your food with mushrooms. You don't
(22:45):
like mushrooms, what do you do? You make the call, Nico.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, if you send food back to the to the
back of house, you're putting your life in your own hands.
When that food comes back, good luck. And you're absolutely right,
depending on the restaurant. Yeah, that's that's career suicide when
you're going to take a bite of that burger or
something you don't know what's in there.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Now, Yeah, you got one shot. And that's one of
the reasons I get annoyed when we go out to eat,
and I usually eat out, like maybe once a week
or whatever, and you go out to eat and I
need full dedication from the waiter, Nico. And I know
it's kind of cool if you're a waiter not to
write down the order and I delete things, I add
(23:26):
things to my order. And since we, as we've talked about,
I don't send food back, so as an act of kindness,
I would like, I would enjoy if the people involved
would actually write down the order to make sure they
get it right, therefore eliminating or at least limiting the
possibility of me sending the food back because they're going
(23:48):
to get the order right. So that's yeah, that's my
my issue on that. So what else we have? Let's see?
Who do we have? EENI Meeni, Miney mo Lucky Tony
from the Bay Area says, I wanted to put this
on record. I never served in the military and I
am not into that stolen valor blankety blank blank. My
(24:11):
dad is a Marine vett and once on the show
I sang Cadence, but that was just so I could
say puss an ass on the radio and reference Soldier
Field Bears. It says. Now the question, what about Benny
versus the Penny one game early Fridays. Yeah, Tony, it's you.
(24:35):
We're sitting here in May. I'm not I'm not worried
about Benny versus the Penny. I did look at the schedule,
as everyone else did. I was looking at the NFL
schedule like, Wow, that's gonna be very difficult if we
do get the TV show back, because you're gonna have
a Wednesday game. The NFL openers on a Wednesday. You're
gonna have a Thursday game. Rams. I think there's a
(24:56):
a Friday game. I mean it might be a Friday
game and then a Saturday game or a Sunday game.
So but either way, that's that's that's a tough that's
a tough schedule. But I'm glad the Lucky Tony I
missed you. You didn't call on Friday, and I wasn't
in most of the week, so hopefully you'll give his
call at some point. There quite quite the character, Nico
Lucky Tony. I've not met Lucky Tony. He's he's a
(25:19):
real gem, that guy.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah, I've heard him, heard him when he calls in hilarious.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah. Yeah, he's real quick and he's got he's got
some daggers. Alf next up on the mailbag with me,
Ben and our friend Nico. Alf from Bowling's Bar and
Patio in Worcester, says Ben. First off, I'd like to
thank you for taking the time out of your busy
schedule to come all the way across the country to
meet up with some people with whom many have never
(25:46):
so much as called into the show, but have been
entertained by you over the years. You'll you'll never know
how much it means blah blah blah blah blah to
have shared a handshake and some kind words personally. Alf says,
I had a whole big reveal plan with a who
m I game? When I saw you, it all went
out the window. When you gave me a Benny Bear hug.
(26:08):
It made me feel like I was Bella and you
were angry Bill, he says. But seriously, I am one
of those people that just listens, Alf says, I never
call in, and you met each and every one of
us feel important and special. Thank you for introducing me
to others. There says, I'm not the kind of person
that will approach others, but neither of my By the way, Alf,
(26:31):
you know I don't normally do that, and I don't necessarily,
Alf says, have the gift of gab for those I
don't know fair enough. That, combined, Alf says with the
loud atmosphere, made it hard for me to communicate with others.
But it was great to meet fans like Brian from
the West Springfield area that told me that he voted
(26:52):
for me over that Fink ferg dog my words. Also
great to meet Jerry, Andre, Dan to Vito or Nasto,
et cetera. Last, but not least, finally, meeting Coop and Lorena,
along with Missus Maller and Missus Coop are memories that
I will always sherish. Alf says, look forward to hopefully
(27:13):
meeting all of you again, maybe somewhere that the two
of us could carry on a normal conversation and actually
hear most of it and could tell you some of
the million things they wanted to say but forgot fair enough, Alf, Yes,
these things are. It depends where you go. There's a summer, big, summer, small, summer,
medium sized, and there's a lot of ambient noise. It
(27:35):
did not and I talked about this over the weekend, Nico.
But this guy, Mike the Leprechaun. There was a band.
It was an Irish pub in Wooster, and Mike got
on stage. He kicked the band off stage and started
doing a monologue. And there were a bunch of people
drinking beer and whatever, trying to enjoy themselves on a
Saturday night. And they were not just our crowd. There
(27:56):
were other people there and Mike the Leprechaun gets up
there and starts he starts rifting, and it was very awkward.
People are like, what is this guy doing? Was he was?
It was pretty wild. It it was pretty wild. But
it was great to meet Alf and his wife, and
Alf's been a big part of the show for many,
many years, and all the p ones that came out.
(28:18):
It was it was a lot of fun and we
got a good crowd. It was. I was a little
concerned the weather was not good, as I've talked about
it over the weekend here, the rain and whatnot, But
it turned out to be a really good situation in
terms of the crowd that did show up, and everyone
seemed to have a good time. Quang from Ho Chi Minh,
Vietnam Rights Since says Guaranteed human a conundrum is a
(28:39):
highly in tricked. It in tristit confusing or difficult problem
said the man with the microphone with a seemingly impossible solution.
Quang writes in it often refers to a riddle, puzzle
or complex ethical dilemma. He says, chick fils is random.
He says chick fil a cells and eight ounce garbage
(29:02):
garbage garden, herb ranch sauce, squeezable bottle with creamy buttermilk
ranch sauce, et cetera. Is this a conundrum as it
has both a the devil's blood and be your obsessive
love of garlic. Well, it's not a conundrum at all, quaang,
(29:22):
because once you toss the ranch in, I'm out. I
love the garlic and the onion and then the herbs
and all that. That's great. Buttermilk is a relative of
the ranch dressing, so I object all of that. It
is not a conundrum. It is not a quagmire. It's
none of those things. It's an easy pass for me.
(29:44):
It's an easy pass for me there at Chick fil A,
although I did see somewhere that they're gonna have I
think they already have Chick fil A vending machines. How
about that one? Are you gonna I was at the
airport in Boston. I didn't mention. Over the weekend they
had the famous white Castle vending machine.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Nico, Oh, that white Castle vending machine. Nice.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, they had that in in Boston at Logan. I
have not seen the Chick fil A vending machine. It's
still a little difficult for me to think, but you're
gonna put money in and get a nice delicious sandwich
out of a vending machine like a Chick fil A sandwich.
And are those vending machines gonna be open on Sunday?
(30:32):
What do you think You think they'll be open on
Sunday or no?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Well, I bet you that vending machine for Chick fil
A is probably gonna be better than the vending machine
that you have at the Fox Sports office there for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Well yeah, yeah, well, Nico, it'll be newer than forty
years so that's a classic, like thirty five or forty
year old vening machine that we have. We haven't worked,
but yeah, I don't know the whole event machine thing.
That's a There's a couple of things in my life.
When I was a kid, food trucks. It was always
(31:07):
terrible food, and now it's become designer food. Like now
food trucks are where the top culinary people go and
develop their craft, and food trucks, I assume it's like
that in Vancouver. I know it's like that in la
where we do the show from where like the really
top restauranteurs that make these amazing weird food dishes are
(31:32):
often in food trucks because it's cheaper. And when I
was growing up, it was like those are the worst man.
They didn't want to eat it a food truck. And
that's changed. But also vending machines. I feel like vending
machines have changed. Like it used to be just put
a couple of back. In the old days, you put
a couple of quarters in, you get a bag of
chips or a candy bar. And now they've got all
(31:52):
these exotic vending machines. You can get all kinds of wow.
So I don't trust it, though, Nico, I don't have
a vending machine.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Many machines have changed. But back in our day, Ben,
what do you mean couple dollars, we'd be putting a
coat hanger in the back through that big slot, trying
to grab stuff from the back. Well, we'd have a
friend trying to shake it to get your stuff out
from the front.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Oh yeah, it was. It was a three man operation.
You get one guy in the back, one on the side,
and then one in the front and you'd all be
shaking it and shake, rattle and roll. Absolutely, that's that's funny. Uh.
Fer Dog in Fullerton writes, and he says, Hello, Ben
and friend of the show, that's Nico uh Freguard says,
I've told you before, I don't listen to your show
(32:36):
when you're not there, but I'll have to. I'll have
to let you know I listened each and every day
you were gone this week. I was listening from eleven
pm Pacific to eleven oh one pm every night, like
a true p one should. You're welcome and well, thank you,
thank you for that solid one minute for dog. I'm
glad that you got to hear the open. He also says,
(32:58):
why do you even try to small talk with Anthony
and Louisiana. You know he only sees you as an
obstacle in his path to flirt with Lorena. Either you
should let him go straight to Lorena or make it
a game to see how long you can keep the
conversation going before he rudely interrupts you to say, Hey, Lorena,
(33:22):
I haven't been timing your calls with him yet, but
you haven't lasted very long. What do you think. Well,
I'm glad you brought this up for a dog, because
it has been my goal with Anthony to try to
see how long I can keep him from saying Hey, Lorena,
(33:43):
and the sound of his voice you can tell when
he's on the air how disappointed he is when I
will not allow him to just ask Lorena a hello
question and then flirt with there. He gets genuinely annoyed.
And it was his dream the other night because you
not only had Lorena, Coop was out and so our
(34:04):
friend Brie was there, and so Anthony was like, oh
my god, I got the beautiful Brie. I've got the
amazing Lorena. This was like a dream come true for him.
And then of course he had to put up with
my fat ass and then eventually he just he says
hellone and he just hangs up. It's very odd to me.
It's very odd that that whole dynamic. I don't know
(34:25):
what else to say, but very odd. But anyway, Ryan
from Shrewsbury writes in in the Commonwealth. He says, hey,
Ben and guest, that would be Nico. It was a
pleasure meeting you on Saturday Ben at Bowlands in Worcester.
I have not missed a pod episode over three years.
(34:46):
A big fan of the best of version of the
Overnight Show. Anyway, he says, no question for me this week,
just said he had a good time and all that.
Hope to do it again with his wife. Yeah, I
want to thank you, right, I was hoping we get
to talk a little bit longer. Ryan left somewhat early,
but he was there with his wife. They had gone
to a wedding. I remember Ryan, you had said you
(35:06):
had a wedding. I think it was that that day
or the day before. So you guys were running around
and then the big pain in the behind and the
weather sucked and all that. And I'm happy that I
got to meet you. And I'm sure we'll be back
at some point, and you know, we're somewhere around there
and you can come by and say loo. Although we're
not going to be doing three of these things in
a row. That one and then that's it. That should
(35:29):
be all for the weekend, maybe one and a half.
That's that's about it. Cal from the OC and so
col writes and he says, hey, Ben, and if you're
with anybody whoever, that is the Washington Nationals have gone
(35:50):
viral and I have to know, are you interested in
going to d C to have their newest treat at
the concession Stance. And then he heard about this Nico
they started selling apparently this week. According to cal shoestring
fries made out of crispy fried hot dogs and paired
(36:12):
with Chipotle ranch sauce. Well, I don't need the ranch dressing.
I've been clear about that. Yeah, it's it's fries made
out of hot dogs.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So that sounds absolutely delicious.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, it's I don't know what would be wrong with it.
It's Burger King didn't I don't know if they still do.
Didn't they have chicken fries, fries made out of little
chicken tenders or something like that. I believe they had
to have.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Burger King had those chicken fries. They had those, and
it's changed now in Canada at least, and now they
had those tiny delicious onion rings back in the day.
That's changed.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, yeah, I look this does not look I'm looking
at at a photo here. I mean it's I don't
need the ranch. I can substitute that alvers, like a
barbecue or something like that. I don't necessarily need it.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Uh, yeah, I'm looking at it. It looks like it
has like a Chipotle mayo or something. With the picture
I'm seeing. Yeah, oh, they put they put a little
fresh Parsley on it.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Oh this looks ah, you're in let's let's go. Yeah,
there he goes booking a trip right now. Yeah, see that,
that's the only reason to go to a Nationals game.
You could just go and look the other way and
just eat the eat the fries, their shoes, their shoestring
fried hot dog pieces, and uh yeah, it'll look bad.
I'd eat that cow, I'd go, I'd go. I don't
(37:41):
want the sauce, but I you know you can have
You're not my saucenico. I'm good on that. Randy, Randy
from the Bay Rights in of the mail bag, he says, Ben,
do you feel bad for Jake Paul not being allowed
to attend w w E events? All right, First of all, Randy, Uh,
I don't know Jake Paul, I don't know Logan Paul.
(38:04):
I just annoyed by what I know of them, So
I don't feel bad for them. And this is all
part of their shtick. And I don't know what happened.
I'm not an expert on relations between Jake Paul and
Dana White. I know there was some kind of beef
that happened between those guys, and I'm not sure exactly
how deep it goes. I just know from the people
(38:25):
I deal with in my world that know Dana White.
Of all the people you don't want to get on
the bad side of, Dana White is in like the
top one percent of people you don't want to be
on the bad side of, because he will mess you
up if he has the opportunity. From what I've heard,
So I don't feel bad. Do you follow any of this, Nico,
(38:47):
any of the Paul Brothers or wrestling or any of
that stuff. Are you in any of that world?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Well, obviously there's a huge fight put on by Jake
Paul tomorrow will Saturday, So it depends when you listen
to this podcast already come out or you haven't seen
it just yet. But also the fact that Dana White,
he looks like Kingpin from Spider Man. I don't know
if I don't think that's the guy you want to
be messing around with. Yes, obviously he has a video
(39:15):
out there. He throws punches. Whether you're a female or
a male, he will take care of you.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Well, he's equal opportunity Dana White. Yeah. I again, I
don't know Randy much about that world. I'm happy that
Apparently both Jake Paul and Logan Paul have fully monetized
their social media celebrities, so good for them. Reggie from
(39:42):
Detroit writes in on the mail bag and he says, Ben,
are you going to do a six line salute when
you get back on the radio for the Cars for
Kids jingle? Which will be going away? He says, and
it is apparently true. Who Now, I don't even know
if this is a thing you know about Nico being
(40:03):
in Vancouver. It's a very famous I'm assuming you've heard
it somewhere along the way, even if it's not on
radio in Vancouver. But the Cars for Kids jingle.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Kars cars for Kids.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yes, yes, exactly exactly. They give out the number eight
seven seven Cars for Kids, whatever it is. And so
this has now the story this week, and it is true, Reggie.
That's the state of California. The geniuses and the People's
Republic of California have now pulled the plug on the
(40:38):
Cars for Kids jingle. This is after a lawsuit. So
this guy, this goes back five years twenty twenty one.
This guy who lives in California sued the charity, claiming
that he donated his car after hearing repeatedly the jingle
is just a total thing that gets in your brain
(41:00):
and you just it's a mind worm. You can't get
it out. And and he thought it would help underprivileged
children in California. Well, it turns out that the corner
of this lawsuit cars for kids. It actually helps out
kids in the New York, New Jersey area. It's like
an orthodox charity in that area, and that most of
(41:24):
the money goes to that. And so anyway, they the court,
the judge in California said that they violated the California
law as I understand it, because it's unfair the way
the song goes, the jingle and all that they failed
to disclose that the donations primarily will not go to
(41:45):
kids in California. So they have thirty days, I guess
less than that now to get rid of the jingle.
And it's one of those things. When I got into
radio nico I, it was a detail end of the jingles.
There were radio stations that still played jingles. And I
(42:05):
love jingles. I think they're the coolest thing in the world.
And if I owned a radio station, I would have
jingles my childhood. And I'm gonna date myself with some
of this, but I remember certain advertisers. For example, if
I and I'll say this randomly on the radio, so
(42:26):
I'll say pop pop phizz fizz. Oh, what a relief
it is. That's a commercial from when I was a kid, right,
Or I wish I was an Oscar Meyer reader, you know.
And that's another jingle from a commercial when I was
a kid. Or I don't want to grow up, I
want to be a Toys r Us kid. These are
(42:46):
all jingles from my youth. I am an older dude
now and I still remember all of those jingles and
I can recite them. I love them. They're wonderful, and
for some reason we got away from them, and that
Cars for Kids thing was the last. I don't want
to say the last, but it was really the last
(43:08):
longest running jingle which is an earworm and your brain
just replays it involuntarily and all that. Do you have
a favorite jingle, Nico, and you are these the same
jingles you heard in Canada or you have different jingles
that you have that we don't have here in Vancouver. Yeah,
you know.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
I got to talk about this Cars for Kids because
there was two key things that we learned here. First
thing is this lawsuit's been going on since twenty twenty one,
which I found shocking, so for five years. The second
thing is this company for cars for kids. They're taking
in forty five million dollars annually. Who is donating these
(43:48):
types of cars for them to take in forty million dollars?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I did not see that. That is a massive That
is a massive money. But it's a great what a
great racket because like even a total beater car that
had nothing left, it's still the metal, and like you
can you can make money from parts of the car
even I don't. People can donate cars that aren't drivable,
I guess, and all that stuff. But yeah, forty five
million is wow. That is next level. That is uh,
(44:17):
that is outstanding. My god. All right, moving on from that,
what else do we have? I'm trying to think. I'm
trying to think of there any other jingle? I use one,
you know, I use one the other night in Nico.
It's not really a jingle, but I guess it kind
of is Recalla.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
That was Or how about the best part of waiting?
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, bolder in your cup? There you go. I love it.
I love it back in the nineties, there was this
place called Chili's and they had in the US anyway,
if they had it in Canada, but they had. I
want my baby back, Baby bag Baby. That's one of
the all time great ones too, all right, I love it.
(44:57):
I love it. Good email question by Reggie in Detroit.
I know we're going long here, so we do a
couple more with our buddy Nico on the mail bag.
He says, Hey, Benny, are you gonna go thumbs up?
Or this is Mike from Las Vegas. He says thumbs
up or thumbs down on torts the Golden Knights. I
(45:18):
saw this, so the Golden Knights law. They beat the
Ducks to advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs last week
and then violated Stanley Cup media protocols with John Tortorella,
who got fined one hundred thousand dollars, the coach of
the team in Vancouver or not Vancouver and used to
coach in Vancouver in Vegas and also according to the
(45:44):
according to Mike here, they lost a second round draft
pick the Golden the Vegas Golden Knights for violating media regulations.
That is intense. I'll go thumbs I love Torts, my
favorite hockey coach. We sucked at a time you cannot suck.
That's a John Tortorella quote, one of my all time
grave favorite quotes from anyone other than like Tomulus Sword
(46:07):
or something like that, or the late Lee Ilia. Yeah,
it's a big though. The NHL has always complained my
entire life, Nico. The people in hockey have complained. They
have said, listen, we need more media attention and we're
not getting enough media. And I know things have changed.
The media is different now than it used to be
(46:28):
when we were growing up, but it's still a big deal.
It's still more people pay attention to the mainstream media
than people like to give credit to. And to not
send the players out and not open the locker room
and all that. Yeah, you can't. You're contractually obligated. Whether
you like this or not. It's in every standard contract.
The Boiler play to these contracts. These guys have to
(46:50):
talk to the media. And I love Torts and all that,
and he's my guy. You know, you just gotta you know,
you gotta do it. You don't have to say anything.
You can just give cliche answers, but you got to
at least make some kind of effort there.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
So yeah, he could have just easily said I'm here,
so I don't get fine, But did you see that
Mitch Marner goal in the first period? I think it
was I don't know if you've seen it.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
But yeah, wow yeah wo. How And if if Vegas
ends up winning, are they going to have to send
to our friends in Toronto? If Mitch Marner is on
the you know this team and they end up winning,
what's gonna happen to the Maple Leaf fans? What do
you think they're going to do over there?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Not that that's going to be a riot, they're gonna
be Yeah, And they hired probably well right now, one
of the worst gms possible to tag along with Matt Sundeen.
So this is not looking good for the Leaves.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, that would be well. I remember when he played
for the Leaves. It was all wow, this guy's yeah,
you just can't get it done in the big moment
and all that, and there most pretty much everyone with
the Maple least my entire life. That's always not that
I'm a hockey guy, Nico. Occasionally I'll occasionally, you know,
watch hockey, and it's always the same arguments like, well,
these guys, you know, you put on that maple sweater
(48:01):
and all of a sudden you choke in big games,
all right, Sam from Kentucky writes in he says, Ben,
are you ready for the World Cup? No? I'm not.
I need to get ready. I actually I will pay
attention to the World Cup. I know, Nico, you're you're
a soccer guy for football as everyone else calls it.
Your son's a big star, and it's gonna be a
great young guy making his way through the soccer world.
(48:24):
But Sam sent a couple of stories here, so I
think this is actually perfect for you, Nico, and we'll
see you have some takes on this. I have some takes.
So the World Cup has confirmed, according to Sam, he
sent me a couple of these stories, the World Cup
has confirmed a super Bowl style halftime show at the final,
and they're gonna have. According to this, Shakira, Madonna and
(48:48):
several other huge name artists will be performing at the
World Cup final. How long is halftime at the World Cup?
Is it longer than the Super Bowl or is it shorter?
I don't even know. I have no idea how long
that is. Say it's the first ever halftime show in
World Cup final history. So is that true if they've
(49:10):
never done that before.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
No, this is also the first year where they're doing
commercial breaks. They're doing water breaks on the field, on
the pitch and so that they can monetize on the
commercial breaks. So it's never really happened before ever.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Yeah, I mean that was always the argument, right, was
that that was the thing that really hurt from a
TV standpoint the sport because they didn't have the traditional
built in TV timeouts like football and basketball, they just
have built in time Baseball has timeouts. Every half inning,
there's a timeout, but they don't have that in in soccer.
(49:44):
Sam also sent this in he says World Cup ticket
to one game. He says, it was revealed that it
would cost a Haitian soccer fan almost twenty five years
of salary to attend the opening game the World Cup
against Scotland. Twenty five years of salary. Oh my god,
(50:09):
man alive, are you gonna be able to go Nicote
any of these games? I know your son's obviously a
big soccer guy and making his way through that world
and all that. I guess there's games all over, right,
It's not just on the West coast. It'll be games
in New York and Boston. So I guess you can
pick your poison where you want to go, right.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Yeah, there's going to be everywhere. In Mexico they have
three three cities out there that are going to host games.
But no the amount of people that are going to
be out there, and obviously we know with this being
the global sport, even though in the NFL says otherwise,
But yeah, there's going to be so many people, and
too many people create too many problems.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
That is true. That is that is true. And you
can sit in your home on a nice sofa and
have as many drinks and snacks as you want, you
can watch and you know, have some fun and all that.
I am looking forward to the World Cup because I
know there's going to be a lot of I always
look for the story within the story, Like the soccer
stuff's cool and all that, but it's really about what
(51:08):
goes on around the games. That's always the stuff that
makes for good talk radio. So much like in previous
World Cups, when we've talked about the different storylines where
somebody inevitably will piss off an entire country and then
there'll be that story and then the you know, coach
will say something stupid and then that'll be good for
a couple of days. And so so that's all good.
(51:32):
Eric from Tampa writes in on the mail bag. He says, hey, hey, Ben,
are you concerned if you go to France about the deer?
And he of course. I don't know why he phrased
it this way, because I've never been to France and
I'm not concerned about deer. But according to police in
France Nico, they are now warning drivers to be on
(51:56):
high alert for drunk deer that have been over indulging
infirmated fermented fruits around France. It's that time of the year,
and I guess these deer are getting hammered and they're
going out and they're walking in traffic. What could possibly
go wrong? What could possibly go wrong with that? Yeah?
(52:20):
I don't I don't know what else to add to that.
That's that's outs Watch out for Bambi, Yeah, exactly. Disney
can remake Bambie do that? Why not? What else we have?
Eric in Ohios has been it was great. Meaning you
in Kentucky a couple of weeks back. I hope you'll
come back soon here we can go to a Reds game.
(52:41):
Sounds like you and Robbie and the gang had a
good time. Yeah. I have a lot of fun with
Robbie and Queen rocks In and Tommy from Atlanta. And
I can't close the deal. Neil and his son that
was That was a very good time, he says, Ben.
I know you work in Sherman Oaks. Have you ever
run into Britney Spears? No? Oh, I have not.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
I did see this story in Nico. This is a
great story from page six and TMZ this week. The
iconic singer Britney Spears not iconic anymore. But she got
into a I don't know what to describe this. She
made a hullablue at a bar called the Blue Dog
(53:22):
Tavern in Sherman Oaks, California. And I do not want
to exaggerate this, Nico. This bar is roughly a block
and a half from where I've worked the last almost
thirty years of my life. It's right down the street.
It's literally a block away from the Fox Sports radio
compound there the iHeartMedia building in Sherman Oaks. And I
(53:44):
just love the fact that Britney Spears, who was at
least for a couple of years, the most famous female
singer that America had in that age group. And she's
out there at this little dive bar in Sherman Oaks
and she I guess, she walked in with a guy
and a gal and they walked around the restaurant. She
(54:06):
was holding a knife. At one point she lit a
cigarette near the door, which of course is illegal everywhere
in California. And then they said her table looked like
a toddler had been there, with food everywhere. It was
just a mess, and all that. She's obviously got a
few issues, more than a few issues and all that.
But my goodness, Britney Spears, that's crazy that area and
(54:31):
Nico will have to get you in there. At some point.
Right above where we broadcast is this neighborhood called bell Air,
which is a famous La neighborhood. A lot of the
Subbys live, and I guess they're so bored where they live.
They all come down and shop and hang out at
the bars and restaurants right around where we do the
show from. And it's really wild at night because a
lot of these guys have these exotic race cars and
(54:54):
they'll drive around when I'm doing the show in the
middle of the night, and they'll race down Ventura Boulevard
and se pal Buta and and but you'll see him
like the Whole Foods Market or you know, different restaurants
around time. But I've not run into Britney Spears. I'd
love to have her on the podcast though, if she'd
come on. I mean, she's probably got some amazing stories
(55:15):
to tell about her situation. All right, On that note,
I think we'll get out. We've gone along here, Nico.
You know your time is very viable. Thank you for
being part of this. I wanted to get you on here.
We rotate some folks through the mailbag every Sunday here
and it's been great. You were You've been a big
friend of the show, Nico, and I wish you best
of luck with your son. I know he's he's cranking up.
(55:37):
He's coming back right he's on the injured list right now.
But we'll be back in a couple of weeks and
then back out traveling all over the place. I imagined
the soccer events and whatnot, so exciting times with that,
and thank you for listening and all that. We appreciate
your time.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Thank you Malan militia.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Outstanding and we will be back tonight, regular week, no
day days off. I will be there on the radio
show eleven pm in the West, two am in the
East all week long as we break down the NBA
playoffs and everything else. And we will catch you later
as Dick and Dayton would say bye bye later.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Skater
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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