October 31, 2025 • 38 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Friday for you! He talks: Halloween/World Series, Benny the Butcher, Audio Chicken Soup Served in Vegas, & more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, the Clearinghouse of
Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air eywhere for the final time in the
month of October, the year twenty twenty five. It is
I Ben Mahler. We have stumbled and bumbled our way
inside the Fifth Hour Podcast Studio, the remote podcast studio,
as we hang out here together enjoying the fun that
(00:53):
is weekend podcasting. And today is a rather big day,
as not only do you have that little Halloween thing,
you got the little Halloween thing. And then tonight is
this the last night of the Major League Baseball season?
Developing Hot Dot Dot Dot the Dodgers and the Toronto
(01:15):
Blue Jays. It is own like Donkey Kong from the
stadium formerly known as SkyDome. You've got Yoshinobu Yamamoto for
the Dodgers favorite the Dodgers are favored to force a
Game seven in the World Series. They open up a
minus one thirty five favorite. They are a little higher
(01:36):
than that. And where is the money. It's it's Yoshinobu
Yamato versus the Gossman, Kevin Gossman, the gas Man Gossman.
That is the matchup at the building known now as
the Rogers Center. And most of the cash, most of
the cash is on the Dodgers. The tickets a little
more split, although the Dodgers have the edge there. So
(01:58):
that is the matchup tonight, and we will have a
complete Malar monologue, win loser, draw. Of course there will
be no draw, but we'll have that on the Saturday
edition of the Fifth Hour. One of the as we
said last week me and Danny g it's one of
the blessings and the curses of doing a weekend podcast.
You have a platform because that'll be old news. Whatever
happens tonight will be old news by the time we
(02:20):
get to the next Ben Mahler show. Not to get
too inside radio, how we make the sausage. You do
not want to know how we make the sausage. But
as far as Halloween is concerned, which is the main
event today, the World series. People will be out doing
things and all that stuff. Every Halloween, I go down
(02:41):
the rabbit hole and I look back and say, well,
where did this all begin? Like what is the origin
of Halloween? Like how far back does it go? It's
got pagan origins. We're reminded of that every time we
look back at what happened. But really it's the se
Eltse who we should thank for what Halloween is today.
(03:04):
The ancient people now they live where modern day Ireland
is in northern France, and the UK's Halloween pagan roots
go back thousands of years to the Celtic fire festival.
I wonder if that's like the one they have in
outside Vegas. Well, the fire festival, that's something else, that's
(03:28):
the daisy something electric light thing. The fire festival was
the one that was a total disaster and made a
Netflix documentary back in the day. Anyway, So they recognized
the end of the harvest season and the start of
the new year on November first, and so they had
this big festival. The pagans wore costumes and they lit fires,
(03:48):
and they had to do that because they wanted to
keep the bad spirits away. You do not want bad
spirits to mess around with you. And so that was that,
and they believed that on October thirty first, today the
dead returned. The dead return to walk among the living.
He's zombieish. Wouldn't that be amazing? Though? Imagine if all
(04:10):
the people that have died like somehow came back and
it would be like great to see them, But then
they'd be like, well, what did you do to my sofa?
You know, I was like my mom she came back
and being then you messed up my kitchen. That's not
my mom. You're not here, but I'm back. But I know,
I I know. I'm glad you're back. But I didn't
think you'd mind. You didn't think you were going to
(04:33):
come back. I don't, I don't know. I mean, what
do you want me to do? Uh? And all that
and uh and so there you go. Yeah, anyway, moving
on from that, let's get to the meat of the
matter on this edition of the Fifth Hour podcast, and
that would be I got two things for you, and
then there's some other stuff. I got Benny the Butcher
(04:55):
and chicken soup in a way. In a way, chicken soup,
So let's start with this. First of all, again, Happy Halloween, Oh,
Happy Halloween. So you reach a certain agent. I guess
I'm at that age now. I would assume I'm at
that age somewhere between. I still know the words to
(05:16):
every Month to Oh Monsters. I know that. And then
I look at the candy bowl and I think, boy,
if I eat that, I'm going to gain all the
weight I lost back, all of it. Just one bowl
of delicious butterfinger and Baby Ruth and Snickers bars and
three Musketeers and it's all gone. And then you start
(05:36):
to think that the Halloween costume, that's a young person's game, right,
You got to be a kid to be in a
Halloween costume, unless, of course, the costume finds you. Welcome
to my world. That's right, mine did right there, in
of all places, the kitchen at the Malor Mansion. Right.
(06:00):
Let me repeat that for the back of the room there. Yeah,
I found my Halloween costume because it slammed me down
in many ways. So I was not at spirit Halloween.
I was not working my way through all the polyester
cowboys and vampire capes and the natty nurses and all
(06:21):
that other stuff. I didn't brave Target. My wife likes Target.
I'm more of a costco guy. I would go to Walmart,
the endless aisles of synthetic rubber masks and scary fangs
if you're gonna be Dracula and all that stuff. So no,
my costume was homemade. It was hand crafted, really hand cut,
(06:43):
really hand cut, if you want to get precise, because
on this particular Halloween week, I became Benny the Lime Cook. Now,
I do like to make I eat one meal a day,
and I try to eat a good meal and the
hearty meal, and that gets me through the rest of
the day. And I don't need to eat three meals.
One meal, save a little bit of money, try not
to get any weight. I have a meal, I have
(07:04):
a snack bowl. That's it. Boom, done, done done. Usually
eat within half an hour to forty minutes, and the
rest of the day I don't eat. Well. It turns
out that Bennie the line cook Moonlight It's got a
second job, must have gone to Express Pros because I
got a second job as Benny the Butcher. That's right.
So let's go back a few days. The Life of Maler,
(07:25):
the Life of Mouth, that lunch is a singular event.
My wife goes to work, she's not home. I'm by myself.
It's me and Moxie, and I usually put Moxie outside
because if Moxie's inside while I'm eating, Moxie wants to
join the meal. And normally what I'll do is, if
I have leftovers, I will then toss them to Moxie
(07:45):
as an active goodwill. As an active goodwill, so I
used to eat just like really terrible food. I still
eat bad food on the weekends, but during the week
I try to eat somewhat healthy. So on this particular day,
I had grilled chicken, I had on a spit, we
had rice. I had rice because I say wee, but
(08:05):
I had rice, pineapple, love pineapple, some diced onion, and
some bell pepper. The kind of meal that if you
had told me when I was twenty years old, I
would be eating when I'm the age i'm at now.
I just said, you're full of crap. And it's also
the kind of meal I think that if you're a nutritionist,
you would put that on the GRAM and get a
lot of clout right, a clean fuel and all that stuff.
(08:27):
Put the eating healthy man look at me now, except
my meal. Even though it sounded very healthy, it sounded
very healthy, my meal was not clean false advertising. Now
we could do a clash parody song, the meal fought
back and the meal one, The meal fought back and
the meal one. You see, I misjudged where my knife
(08:51):
ended and the finger began, which is kind of similar
to going to Arizona and misjudging where the cliff and
and the grand Canyon begins. Hello, Hello, it doesn't end well. Now,
if you ever have that split second where your brain
lags behind. Have you ever had that? You know what
(09:12):
I'm talking about? You think that kind that felt kind
of weird. It didn't feel like it was supposed to feel.
So I'm cutting the onion and I had that brain
lag where it's like, what's going on with that? That
didn't feel quite right, and so I thought, well, it
must be the onion. Maybe it was a bad onion.
(09:33):
I didn't examine the onion. I cut the onion, so
I picked the onion up. At this point, I now
am inspector gadget. I should update that reference. I am
imagine me in a lab code. I'm working on CSI right,
it's better than Inspector Gadget, although I like Inspector Gadget
more than CSI. And only at this point in the
(09:55):
story did I notice in my peripheral vision these little
red drips drip, drip, drip. Now, this is the part
of the story that is not for the faint of heart.
It is not you see, at that moment, a simple
chopping of the onion became a horror movie plot twist.
(10:19):
It's not the onion's fault, it's not. There were no
special effects. There was no current corn syrup or food
dye or any of that, just my knuckle on my
right hand auditioning for an upcoming Tarantino close up. Yes. So, now,
later today, as the neighborhood kids parade around through their
(10:39):
cute little costumes through the mean streets of the north Woods,
dressed as princesses and pikachuw's and all the other stuff
that I have no idea. Well, you go through the
list of popular Halloween costumes and it's like, that's anime,
that's anime, So what's anime? Just go with it, Just
go with it. I'm old, I'm older than anime. I
don't know that. I didn't grow up with anime. I
(11:00):
grew up with the Looney Tunes. Well that year old
you don't know what, you don't know what these things
are as a bad job by you. So anyway, I
will be the gentleman who will be waving from the
driveway as I walk out to the car with the
I have the new skin, I have the gauze wrapped
around the hand like a mummy mall or the Mummy.
And of course I lost the instructural manual. So my
(11:24):
homemade costume is called stylish Bloodshed, Benny's Stylish Bloodshed. The
authenticity of this, I'm telling you, is undeniable. It is
absolutely un deniable. I didn't even need a sewing machine.
I didn't. My mom was an epic sewer back in
(11:44):
the day. But I didn't need my mom's old sewing machine.
Just a chef's knife and a little spatula awareness and
that's it. So somewhere off in the wild blue yonder,
way out there in the wild blue yonder, wes Craven smiling.
It's got a Cheshire cat smile from ear to ear
hearing the story. Now, had I sliced just a millimeter,
(12:08):
just a a millimeter more, you and I would be
having a much different conversation right now. Instead of talking
about what did happen was I just went over there?
We would be talking dismemberment instead of a chunk of
my flesh on my knuckle, on my pointer finger going
(12:29):
away from this thick laceration you see. I then if
that had been a dismemberment, I would have been the
star of my own low budget remake, The Big Lebowski two,
starring Ben Maller. This time the dude loses a digit.
Forget the the severed toe in the shoe box. What's
in the box? Now my finger? And this is the
(12:54):
part where Brad Pitt, who looks really weird in that mustache,
I SunUp the Dodger gameless week. It's very weird. This
is where Brad Pitt comes in screaming what's in the box.
I'd also like to point out Brad Pitt if you
ever saw me, he said, ooh, you got a body
for overnight talk radio. That's right, Brad, I do, Daddy.
There's a bit of a malord metaphor in this story.
(13:15):
Somewhere seems like there always is, always is a bit
of a metaphor. So maybe it's about the hubris that
I was so confident in my ability to multitask that
I tried to make lunch and play iron chef at
the same time while watching while watching the World series.
(13:36):
It might be about my age, the way reflexes kind
of slowed down, and the knives don't forget and all
that stuff. However, I don't think of myself as that old.
I know mathematically if you had told me when I
was twelve years old, you said, how old, Well that's
old man, You're a relic. You're really old. Or maybe
it's about the metaphor is about Halloween itself, and we
(14:00):
spend so many you're watching horror movies and all this
stuff and trying to get those fake scares, only to
find that at some point the real ones are sitting
there very quietly off to the side in the kitchen, waiting,
just waiting for you to reach for the cutting board
and the very sharp knife. And the whole thing reminds
(14:21):
me of every over confident, blowhard radio host who thinks
that they can juggle too many hot takes at once
and you end up burning the microphones one slip and
suddenly you're bleeding ratings. In that case, but that the
knife doesn't care if you've done this a thousand times before, right,
(14:41):
they don't care. So again later tonight on Halloween. Later tonight,
when I visit my lovely and sweet niece and nephew
for their Halloween festival, I will be the man with
the bandage, hand the new skin, and then the bandage
walking PSA for life safety call me the middle aged Frankenstein,
(15:04):
and I will be held together by gauze and regret
that I didn't pay closer attention while chopping the onion.
I'm sure there'll be some kids if I take the
gauze off that will scream, oh my god, what happened
to that man. I'll smile. I'll smile at them, and
I'll tell them kids, this is a teachable moment. This
is a public service announcement from your friend on the radio.
(15:29):
I used to be the king of PSA. Is what happens.
This is what happens when you don't respect the onion.
I'm telling you respect the almighty onion. Now the good
news again, my finger is still attached. The bad news,
the chunk of my flesh is gone. The ego is
(15:49):
not attached as much a homemade costume. I would tell
you though, this homemade costume unforgettable, unforgettable. After all, there
is nothing, nothing that says Halloween like the authentic droplets
of blood on your apron and a story that begins
(16:14):
It was supposed to be a quiet lunch by myself,
and then you'll never believe what happened next. You'll never
ever believe it. All right, turn the page on that
we go to the great radio Pilgrimage in sin City.
(16:36):
That's right, beautiful sin City. So people go to Vegas
to gamble, to take part in all kinds of debauchery,
to party, to lose all sense of time and place.
We know that I go to Vegas three or four
times a year. Now. I went there to renew this
(16:58):
last weekend there, to renew my vows with radio, or
at least to confirm that the almighty, all powerful, omnipresent
magic Radio Box still exists on the big stage. When
it seems like most people get their content from TikTok
(17:21):
and Instagram and they get to that social media dopamine
slot machine going and all that stuff, you realize that
it's a bit of a rig game, right, that social media. Yeah,
everyone's on there, but how many people are active on
there and whatnot. So it turns out that there's a
lot there. The Magic Radio Box still exists and it
(17:44):
is great. So this past weekend, again I found myself
bleary eyed and heavily over the caffeinated with those caffeine supplements.
I got at CBS doing the Bend Maler Show, The
Bend Maler Show from the world class iHeart Studios on
Fremont Street. I am blown away. I said it last time,
(18:06):
and I went in there again, and I want to
thank Ice, who's a big DJ star. She knows Flavor Flaves,
She's a big deal in Vegas and she kind of
runs that place at night. She came in there and
we were hanging out and it was cool. Nice to
see her again and anyway, moving on with sorry. So
I was there at the Iheartstudos Fremont Street now Fremont again.
(18:29):
For those of you that have not been to Vegas,
and for those of you that have been but haven't
been lately, Fremont Street is what happens when the civilized
world decides it's no longer interested in daylight. It is
a real life freak show. There is no admission. You
don't have to pay for admission. You just go through
(18:51):
some metal detectors. It's a freak show with free admission.
It's a human zoo. And unlike the San Diego Zoo,
where you might see a hippo or a heeling monster
or any other goblin that might be there, No, no, no,
it turns out that when you go to Fremont Street,
you don't have to pay. It's a human zoo and
it's where you can see everything from grown men wearing
(19:14):
diapers to women wearing pasties who probably shouldn't be wearing pasties.
You know, we should maybe had one less cheeseburger. And
I'm the last guy to talk. And then Elvis impersonators
up the wazoo a little bit of everything. I got
cover bands, there's music, there's zip lines. It is sensory overload,
(19:34):
is what it is. It's also humanity's clearance rack. It is.
So I wrap up the overnight show in Vegas, and
I wrap it up. I wrap it up. It's like
three in the morning. Right, Wait, this this works. I
(19:55):
wrap it up, and I have some other business I
have to take care of, so I can't just leave
right away. But that's the witching hour at three am.
That's the witching hour for the degenerate and the dreamer
in that part of Vegas, Old Vegas and then or
downtown base what you're gonna call it at locals, I
think say Downtown, Others say Fremont, whatever, it doesn't really matter.
(20:18):
You get the point. So, because the job requires a
certain level of lunacy when you do this kind of work,
I drag my fat ass and I took my lovely
wife over to New York, New York, down on the
Strip for the Power Trip Morning show from Kfan in Minneapolis, Kfan, Kfan. Now,
(20:43):
if you live outside the Twin Cities, and by the way,
my hand is raised, I do live outside the Twin Cities,
you might not grasp the gravitational pull of the Power Trip. Well, Ben,
it's just a little morning show, It's all it is.
Don't embellish it. We don't need puffery. What is wrong
with you? I don't do that. Okay, time out. This
(21:04):
is not puffery. This is not embellishment. It is not
I promise you I will let you know next time
I go down that road. So the morning show, the
Power Trip. The big stars the players are Chris hockey,
or Hawkeye as we call hockey. His nicknames is the
Hawk Corey and then Meat Sauce, whose real name is Paul,
but he goes by the name Meat Sauce. And so
(21:26):
these guys, Hawk Corey and Meat Sauce are the three
Musketeers of Minnesota mornings. One part sports, one part stand
up comedy, and one part group therapy. And by any
measurement and by every metric, they are a phenomena. They
(21:49):
are and tip of the headphones from one radio guide
to another, and they're very kind. They liked the overnight
show where they'll lead in on the network. They carry
us overnight on Kfan, And to put in perspective about
how bonkers this whole thing was, there were listeners and
not just a few listeners that plan their vacations around
(22:13):
these guys. The show is simulcast across the iHeart and
a bunch of iHeart stations in Minnesota. It's also streamed online.
They've got a massive following rivaling you know, you think
about like some football teams that have no fans, like
a small market NFL franchise. And on this particular weekend,
(22:35):
they were broadcasting in Vegas and that's how I, the
overnight Vampire from Fox Sports Radio, ended up in their orbit,
and I had actually met Hawk. I think we talked
about this. I met Hawk a little while back thanks
to some Mallard Militia listeners in Minnesota who are big
fans of both shows who connected us the last time
(22:57):
I was in Vegas and Hawk happened to be there. Now,
originally the plan was when I had seen Hawk the
last time, I said, oh, yeah, he guess he works
for the Vikings. He does some of the radio stuff
for the Minnesota Vikings. So I figured, well, the plan
would be to hang out when the Vikings played the
Chargers at Sofi Stadium, that I'd go there, I'd prepare
for my radio show. I'd get to see the quick
(23:18):
five minute hey, how you're doing good, to catch up
with you and all that stuff. So that was the plan.
The Vikings weren't time to play the Chargers last Thursday,
or I guess two thursdays ago, because last night we
had the Ravens absolutely dismember the Dolphins. Back to the story,
so you know, here we are the Chargers and Vikings,
two teams that could lose a coin toss with a
(23:40):
Magnet and I was going to go to the game
and Hawk had text me a couple of weeks earlier.
He's like, hey, you know, I think I forget exactly
what he said. We said we're going to be in Vegas.
I think he said something like the guys want to
meet you on the show. And so he invited me
on their show, and I could not resist. I love radio,
and I've heard so many crazy things about how good
(24:02):
the show is and how popular the show is and
all this stuff. The Minnesota audience is just different. It
just cuts different. And you guys had hyped these guys
up on Power Trip for a while. People were prank
calling us with meat sauce, saying meat sauce and all
that stuff. So you guys had been telling me that
this was the show, the Power Trip. This was it right,
This is like the Beatles of bloviating. So I wanted
(24:26):
to see with all of the gusto I have or
the what it was in living color. I wanted to
witness it the hullaballoo. So there I was. I made
a last minute trip to Las Vegas. Now my wife
was with me, and she asked me as we were
leaving Fremont Street, the iHeart Studios, going to the hotel
(24:47):
for a second and going to the event. She asked me,
She's like, well, you know who's going to be there,
Who's gonna be on hand? Do I need to get
dressed up for this? As is anyone going to be there?
And I told her, I said, listen, this popular show,
it's a local show. They're sixteen hundred miles or whatever
it is away from the Twin Cities. It's four in
the morning. Just don't expect much. I know it's a
(25:10):
popular show, but who's going to show up here at
this time? It was four in the morning. And so
you know what happens when you assume, right, you know,
we all know what happens when you assume. So I
parked the car, I pay my twenty five dollars for parking.
I'm paying seventy dollars in Vegas for a little over
twenty four hours. Ended up paying seventy dollars to park
(25:32):
the car. You know how much you paid to park
the car for? I don't know. Thirty years up until
about ten years ago, nothing, nothing. It was free. Everywhere
was free. If they've charged for parking, you didn't go
you said you ignored it. That's it anyway, So I
assumed there would be very few people there. I'm walking
through New York, New York, after paying, you know, getting
(25:52):
ripped off for the parking, and I was waiting with
baited breath to find tumbleweeds to the right direct from Russia,
an invasive species. And I thought there'd be a few chainsmoking,
probably older elderly women, and a few guys, maybe in
(26:13):
wheelchairs with oxygen, and there'd be some other guys that
were heavily intoxicated, some insomniacs clinging the slot machines. Instead,
I found something that I still marvel at. There were
hundreds of people in Minnesota, purple jerseys, hats. I didn't
(26:40):
see any face paint. There might have been some guy
in the back. I think he fell asleep. There was
a buzz kind of sounded like that, kind of sounded
like that that could light the strip up. It was
not just a crowd, it was a congregation. I was like, WHOA, Like,
I've done Mallard meet greets, and we get good crowds.
(27:01):
We get sometimes we don't get good growd with the
smallest one we ever had was in Wisconsin. It was
last minute. It was Appleton, Wisconsin. We do pretty well
in Boston. We've done well. In La we've done well.
We've had good turnouts in Minnesota. By the way, was
amazing when we did the malar meat greet there in Minnesota.
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot
of fun. So anyway, I was like, okay, so there
(27:23):
are all these people. It was not just a crowd.
It was like, like I said, it was bigger than that.
You don't get that in radio much anymore, in an
era where the corporate machine is worried about one thing
and one thing only the bottom line. That's all that matters.
And the goal of many of these mega media companies
is not a good product. They want a product you'll
(27:46):
listen to. It doesn't have to be good. The main
goal is just nickel and dime everything low ball here.
You know, they can't give you that there all that stuff.
Now we know that every one's chasing clicks and the
algorithm and all that. But these guys have created a
real a real community, I guess is the word I'll
(28:09):
use again as something that is tangible. And so this
was a chicken soup for the Broadcast Soul chicken soup
for the Broadcast Soul. It was like bone broth that
went right into my bones. And it reminded me why
I got in to this racket years ago in the
(28:30):
first place, when I decided to go down that road,
and I could have been a doctor or a lawyer,
some kind of Wall Street guy, and I went down
this road, so I got in this racket. And that
the connection, the bond, the live wire between a microphone
and a fan base, that just feels something. There's something there,
(28:50):
the communal aspect of it, that you're all listening to
the same thing at the same time, you're all part
of it. So we're pretty lucky. We're pretty lucky you
and I because we have that in the Mallard Militia.
We have that. These guys found it in Morning Drive
in Minnesota, and congratulations, good job by them. They don't
need Meda corasulate them. They've done a great job. Moving
on with the story, the Power Trip Fellas from Minnesota.
(29:14):
The Power Trip Fellas. They even allowed me access behind
the velvet ropes to take part in the crown jewel
of their show, the segment of segments every Friday. It's
the Initials Game. Well, what the f is the Initials Game?
I don't know what that is for the uninitiated, and
I was part of that. It's kind of like Jeopardy
(29:36):
Cross with Wheel of Fortune, only a little bit louder,
hopefully funnier, and very competitive, much more competitive than those shows.
Now they've been doing this for years. I was on
episode six hundred. They have their own standalone podcast on iHeart.
The podcast allows you to play along the Initials game,
(29:57):
and so this has become a regional phenomenon. They actually
sell the home version online. They sell a fair amount
of copies around the Upper Midwest. And there's really no pressure, right,
I mean, here am I here? I am rather here.
I am just showing up, you know, I'm the guest
and all that. And I actually practiced. The guys told
(30:17):
me they wanted me to be on this, and so
I was like, okay, I'll do it. I'll practice. And
so I went in the car and I turned on
their podcast and I listened and I was yapping away
talking about you know whatever, and you know, kind of
playing along. And sure enough, I practiced, and when it
was showtime the lights came on, I ended up surrounded
(30:38):
by savants. Hawk and Meat Sauce were like Mozart and
Da Vinci, except they had a buzzer, which was their name,
and they rattled off answers before I could even process
the first clue boom, and I was shut out early.
I was shut out. I'm not going to sit here
and do revisions history. But redemption came in the bonus
(31:03):
round and the initials were gl and I got Great Lakes.
That was me. They didn't give it to me. They
didn't hand it to me. Nobody told me what the
word was. I scored Great Lakes. Mission accomplished. So after
the show, the many fans there that were not there
to see me, they were there to hang out with
the power Trip. They wanted a little FaceTime after the event,
(31:27):
and many of them had Again, I just want to
stress how crazy this is. These people flew out to
La to watch the Vikings play the Chargers. It then
drove all night from in the hood in Inglewood and
up no good. So they drove all night from Inglewood
(31:48):
near Lax through the California desert just to be there
after watching their Vikings get mollywopped by the Chargers and
they weren't chasing fame or prizes. They were just chasing
that bond between a listener and the radio show. And
I did have a chance to talk to some of
(32:09):
these people. You know who you are. If you're listening
right now, you might remember our conversation. It is interesting
to note that a few of the people said that
they were just in Vegas for the morning show at
the Power Trip. They were then planning on driving back
to la because apparently the and I didn't check the
Timberwolves and the Lakers played the game, so they were
(32:30):
planning on sticking around to watch that game. So okay,
and met I didn't write any notes down, but I
met the guy. One of the guys was there. He's
sitting in the front on the right hand side. He
works at a pepsi plant in Minnesota. He told me
that the boys listen all the time, that they're fans
of the show. They bottle pepsi products in Minnesota. There
(32:54):
was another gentleman who was there with his wife who
she's from Dallas. I remember he's from he's from Minnesota
and now they're both in Denver. And unless unless what
he told me was wrong or I made it up,
in my head, I believe he had said, since he
(33:14):
lives in Denver, he's had the Mallor. Now, what is
the Mallor? I don't know what the malor is. The
Mallor is one of the most delicious things you can
possibly have. It is well. The Mallor is available at
the Sportsbook Bar and Grill. There are multiple locations in
the Greater Denver area. They are not paying me to
tell you about this. I just want to get the
word out. We spent so much time promoting the Ben
(33:36):
Mallard chicken. Fingers often lost in the shuffle, Often lost
in the shuffle. Is this The Sportsbook Bar and Grill
has the Mallor. That's the name of it, the mallar
buffalo chicken. They have the fried chicken breast tossed in
hot sauce. They have the lettuce, the tomato. If you
want to go that, I go, no tomato on mine.
(33:57):
They have blue cheese. I don't need the blue cheese.
I'm good. I don't need the blue cheese. But it's delicious.
I recommend it, highly recommended it anyway. But despite that,
again we lined up, met some fans, took some photos,
and at the very end there, I was running on
fumes and the caffeine had worn out. So I stumbled
back to the hotel, which was off the strip, one
(34:18):
of the few hotels that has free parking, very important
much so I paid seventy five dollars for parking, and
I didn't even have to pay at the hotel. We
stayed at seventy five dollars. Went to the place we
do the radio show at the iHeart Studios, had to
pay for that. Well, you work for iHeart, you shouldn't
have to pay. Okay, we'll let the people over there know.
Let them know everything got turned off, including what happened
(34:44):
in we just mentioned here the whole thing shut down
and all that stuff. So anyway, I just loved the
tremendous vibe that was out there, and so I went
back to the hotel. I crashed. The ears were still
ringing with laughter and applause. And it wasn't about me.
(35:07):
It was about the medium. A reminder that even in
twenty twenty five, when everyone's jaded and yours truly as well,
and the algorithm is the almighty, all powerful king, it's
not about how many people listen, it's how many people
click and radio still has more than a pulsip. Radio
(35:28):
to me is like baseball. For two hundred years, or
at least one hundred and fifty, people have been writing
stories that baseball's boring, baseball's dead, Baseball's not gonna make it.
All of these stories right year after year, and it
just keeps on going. It just keeps on going and
going and going. And the funny thing is more people
(35:51):
now want to do radio than they ever before in
the history of radio. Radio has never been more popular
than it is today. And What's My evidence podcast? Whether
it's consuming podcasting like this show, or whether or not
it is doing your own podcast. There are so many
people that want to do podcasts and want to listen
to podcasts. God bless them because this is a podcast.
(36:12):
But get to the point, please. So the point is.
The point is that when you're doing a podcast or
listening to a podcast, it's radio without the radio. However,
it's still radio. You're doing broadcast work, you're doing spoken word.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I know some of the podcasts are on video and
some of the radio shows are on video. The point is,
though the essence of it, the ethos of it, is
that it is a audio program. That you don't have
to sit there and watch the show. You can. You
can do what you want, right, You can do what
you want, and so listen. Vegas just has its own sound,
(36:53):
of course, is the slot machines, the sirens, the constant
hum people trying to win something, to get out of
a deep dark place. However, tucked inside a casino at
New York, New York, at dawn, I saw something better.
(37:15):
I saw something better. There were a bunch of proud Minnesotans,
Minnesota and Ice, proving that when the right voices come
through the speakers, people still show up. And they weren't
there for a jackpot because nobody won that. They were
there for a connection. They were there for a connection,
(37:35):
and it was pretty freaking cool. It really was. All Right,
we'll leave you on that note. We'll see what happens
tonight with the Dodgers. We should have a very Dodger
centric fifth hour. I will put together some Mallard monologues
after the game, and we'll come in here early tomorrow
on Saturday morning, the first day of November, and we'll
(37:59):
cobble together a malamool I hopefully Danny will be with me.
I'm not sure he's Halloween weekend. He might be out
of town. I don't know, but there it is. All right.
We'll put the baby to bed, have a wonderful, gious
rest of your Halloween. We'll see what happens with the
Dodgers and Jays tonight, and I we'll catch you next
time later, skater asta pasta. See that's see, Danny, that's
(38:25):
the part, Danny. That's the part where we end this
right here. See this is the end part. Yeah, that's
it right there, we end it. Yeah, that's right. Okay,
hit that that what you might call yeah, hit to
what you mightna call it? Got a murder. I gotta go,
thank you, okay, bye bye
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow, the Clearinghouse of
Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air eywhere for the final time in the
month of October, the year twenty twenty five. It is
I Ben Mahler. We have stumbled and bumbled our way
inside the Fifth Hour Podcast Studio, the remote podcast studio,
as we hang out here together enjoying the fun that
(00:53):
is weekend podcasting. And today is a rather big day,
as not only do you have that little Halloween thing,
you got the little Halloween thing. And then tonight is
this the last night of the Major League Baseball season?
Developing Hot Dot Dot Dot the Dodgers and the Toronto
(01:15):
Blue Jays. It is own like Donkey Kong from the
stadium formerly known as SkyDome. You've got Yoshinobu Yamamoto for
the Dodgers favorite the Dodgers are favored to force a
Game seven in the World Series. They open up a
minus one thirty five favorite. They are a little higher
(01:36):
than that. And where is the money. It's it's Yoshinobu
Yamato versus the Gossman, Kevin Gossman, the gas Man Gossman.
That is the matchup at the building known now as
the Rogers Center. And most of the cash, most of
the cash is on the Dodgers. The tickets a little
more split, although the Dodgers have the edge there. So
(01:58):
that is the matchup tonight, and we will have a
complete Malar monologue, win loser, draw. Of course there will
be no draw, but we'll have that on the Saturday
edition of the Fifth Hour. One of the as we
said last week me and Danny g it's one of
the blessings and the curses of doing a weekend podcast.
You have a platform because that'll be old news. Whatever
happens tonight will be old news by the time we
(02:20):
get to the next Ben Mahler show. Not to get
too inside radio, how we make the sausage. You do
not want to know how we make the sausage. But
as far as Halloween is concerned, which is the main
event today, the World series. People will be out doing
things and all that stuff. Every Halloween, I go down
(02:41):
the rabbit hole and I look back and say, well,
where did this all begin? Like what is the origin
of Halloween? Like how far back does it go? It's
got pagan origins. We're reminded of that every time we
look back at what happened. But really it's the se
Eltse who we should thank for what Halloween is today.
(03:04):
The ancient people now they live where modern day Ireland
is in northern France, and the UK's Halloween pagan roots
go back thousands of years to the Celtic fire festival.
I wonder if that's like the one they have in
outside Vegas. Well, the fire festival, that's something else, that's
(03:28):
the daisy something electric light thing. The fire festival was
the one that was a total disaster and made a
Netflix documentary back in the day. Anyway, So they recognized
the end of the harvest season and the start of
the new year on November first, and so they had
this big festival. The pagans wore costumes and they lit fires,
(03:48):
and they had to do that because they wanted to
keep the bad spirits away. You do not want bad
spirits to mess around with you. And so that was that,
and they believed that on October thirty first, today the
dead returned. The dead return to walk among the living.
He's zombieish. Wouldn't that be amazing? Though? Imagine if all
(04:10):
the people that have died like somehow came back and
it would be like great to see them, But then
they'd be like, well, what did you do to my sofa?
You know, I was like my mom she came back
and being then you messed up my kitchen. That's not
my mom. You're not here, but I'm back. But I know,
I I know. I'm glad you're back. But I didn't
think you'd mind. You didn't think you were going to
(04:33):
come back. I don't, I don't know. I mean, what
do you want me to do? Uh? And all that
and uh and so there you go. Yeah, anyway, moving
on from that, let's get to the meat of the
matter on this edition of the Fifth Hour podcast, and
that would be I got two things for you, and
then there's some other stuff. I got Benny the Butcher
(04:55):
and chicken soup in a way. In a way, chicken soup,
So let's start with this. First of all, again, Happy Halloween, Oh,
Happy Halloween. So you reach a certain agent. I guess
I'm at that age now. I would assume I'm at
that age somewhere between. I still know the words to
(05:16):
every Month to Oh Monsters. I know that. And then
I look at the candy bowl and I think, boy,
if I eat that, I'm going to gain all the
weight I lost back, all of it. Just one bowl
of delicious butterfinger and Baby Ruth and Snickers bars and
three Musketeers and it's all gone. And then you start
(05:36):
to think that the Halloween costume, that's a young person's game, right,
You got to be a kid to be in a
Halloween costume, unless, of course, the costume finds you. Welcome
to my world. That's right, mine did right there, in
of all places, the kitchen at the Malor Mansion. Right.
(06:00):
Let me repeat that for the back of the room there. Yeah,
I found my Halloween costume because it slammed me down
in many ways. So I was not at spirit Halloween.
I was not working my way through all the polyester
cowboys and vampire capes and the natty nurses and all
(06:21):
that other stuff. I didn't brave Target. My wife likes Target.
I'm more of a costco guy. I would go to Walmart,
the endless aisles of synthetic rubber masks and scary fangs
if you're gonna be Dracula and all that stuff. So no,
my costume was homemade. It was hand crafted, really hand cut,
(06:43):
really hand cut, if you want to get precise, because
on this particular Halloween week, I became Benny the Lime Cook. Now,
I do like to make I eat one meal a day,
and I try to eat a good meal and the
hearty meal, and that gets me through the rest of
the day. And I don't need to eat three meals.
One meal, save a little bit of money, try not
to get any weight. I have a meal, I have
(07:04):
a snack bowl. That's it. Boom, done, done done. Usually
eat within half an hour to forty minutes, and the
rest of the day I don't eat. Well. It turns
out that Bennie the line cook Moonlight It's got a
second job, must have gone to Express Pros because I
got a second job as Benny the Butcher. That's right.
So let's go back a few days. The Life of Maler,
(07:25):
the Life of Mouth, that lunch is a singular event.
My wife goes to work, she's not home. I'm by myself.
It's me and Moxie, and I usually put Moxie outside
because if Moxie's inside while I'm eating, Moxie wants to
join the meal. And normally what I'll do is, if
I have leftovers, I will then toss them to Moxie
(07:45):
as an active goodwill. As an active goodwill, so I
used to eat just like really terrible food. I still
eat bad food on the weekends, but during the week
I try to eat somewhat healthy. So on this particular day,
I had grilled chicken, I had on a spit, we
had rice. I had rice because I say wee, but
(08:05):
I had rice, pineapple, love pineapple, some diced onion, and
some bell pepper. The kind of meal that if you
had told me when I was twenty years old, I
would be eating when I'm the age i'm at now.
I just said, you're full of crap. And it's also
the kind of meal I think that if you're a nutritionist,
you would put that on the GRAM and get a
lot of clout right, a clean fuel and all that stuff.
(08:27):
Put the eating healthy man look at me now, except
my meal. Even though it sounded very healthy, it sounded
very healthy, my meal was not clean false advertising. Now
we could do a clash parody song, the meal fought
back and the meal one, The meal fought back and
the meal one. You see, I misjudged where my knife
(08:51):
ended and the finger began, which is kind of similar
to going to Arizona and misjudging where the cliff and
and the grand Canyon begins. Hello, Hello, it doesn't end well. Now,
if you ever have that split second where your brain
lags behind. Have you ever had that? You know what
(09:12):
I'm talking about? You think that kind that felt kind
of weird. It didn't feel like it was supposed to feel.
So I'm cutting the onion and I had that brain
lag where it's like, what's going on with that? That
didn't feel quite right, and so I thought, well, it
must be the onion. Maybe it was a bad onion.
(09:33):
I didn't examine the onion. I cut the onion, so
I picked the onion up. At this point, I now
am inspector gadget. I should update that reference. I am
imagine me in a lab code. I'm working on CSI right,
it's better than Inspector Gadget, although I like Inspector Gadget
more than CSI. And only at this point in the
(09:55):
story did I notice in my peripheral vision these little
red drips drip, drip, drip. Now, this is the part
of the story that is not for the faint of heart.
It is not you see, at that moment, a simple
chopping of the onion became a horror movie plot twist.
(10:19):
It's not the onion's fault, it's not. There were no
special effects. There was no current corn syrup or food
dye or any of that, just my knuckle on my
right hand auditioning for an upcoming Tarantino close up. Yes. So, now,
later today, as the neighborhood kids parade around through their
(10:39):
cute little costumes through the mean streets of the north Woods,
dressed as princesses and pikachuw's and all the other stuff
that I have no idea. Well, you go through the
list of popular Halloween costumes and it's like, that's anime,
that's anime, So what's anime? Just go with it, Just
go with it. I'm old, I'm older than anime. I
don't know that. I didn't grow up with anime. I
(11:00):
grew up with the Looney Tunes. Well that year old
you don't know what, you don't know what these things
are as a bad job by you. So anyway, I
will be the gentleman who will be waving from the
driveway as I walk out to the car with the
I have the new skin, I have the gauze wrapped
around the hand like a mummy mall or the Mummy.
And of course I lost the instructural manual. So my
(11:24):
homemade costume is called stylish Bloodshed, Benny's Stylish Bloodshed. The
authenticity of this, I'm telling you, is undeniable. It is
absolutely un deniable. I didn't even need a sewing machine.
I didn't. My mom was an epic sewer back in
(11:44):
the day. But I didn't need my mom's old sewing machine.
Just a chef's knife and a little spatula awareness and
that's it. So somewhere off in the wild blue yonder,
way out there in the wild blue yonder, wes Craven smiling.
It's got a Cheshire cat smile from ear to ear
hearing the story. Now, had I sliced just a millimeter,
(12:08):
just a a millimeter more, you and I would be
having a much different conversation right now. Instead of talking
about what did happen was I just went over there?
We would be talking dismemberment instead of a chunk of
my flesh on my knuckle, on my pointer finger going
(12:29):
away from this thick laceration you see. I then if
that had been a dismemberment, I would have been the
star of my own low budget remake, The Big Lebowski two,
starring Ben Maller. This time the dude loses a digit.
Forget the the severed toe in the shoe box. What's
in the box? Now my finger? And this is the
(12:54):
part where Brad Pitt, who looks really weird in that mustache,
I SunUp the Dodger gameless week. It's very weird. This
is where Brad Pitt comes in screaming what's in the box.
I'd also like to point out Brad Pitt if you
ever saw me, he said, ooh, you got a body
for overnight talk radio. That's right, Brad, I do, Daddy.
There's a bit of a malord metaphor in this story.
(13:15):
Somewhere seems like there always is, always is a bit
of a metaphor. So maybe it's about the hubris that
I was so confident in my ability to multitask that
I tried to make lunch and play iron chef at
the same time while watching while watching the World series.
(13:36):
It might be about my age, the way reflexes kind
of slowed down, and the knives don't forget and all
that stuff. However, I don't think of myself as that old.
I know mathematically if you had told me when I
was twelve years old, you said, how old, Well that's
old man, You're a relic. You're really old. Or maybe
it's about the metaphor is about Halloween itself, and we
(14:00):
spend so many you're watching horror movies and all this
stuff and trying to get those fake scares, only to
find that at some point the real ones are sitting
there very quietly off to the side in the kitchen, waiting,
just waiting for you to reach for the cutting board
and the very sharp knife. And the whole thing reminds
(14:21):
me of every over confident, blowhard radio host who thinks
that they can juggle too many hot takes at once
and you end up burning the microphones one slip and
suddenly you're bleeding ratings. In that case, but that the
knife doesn't care if you've done this a thousand times before, right,
(14:41):
they don't care. So again later tonight on Halloween. Later tonight,
when I visit my lovely and sweet niece and nephew
for their Halloween festival, I will be the man with
the bandage, hand the new skin, and then the bandage
walking PSA for life safety call me the middle aged Frankenstein,
(15:04):
and I will be held together by gauze and regret
that I didn't pay closer attention while chopping the onion.
I'm sure there'll be some kids if I take the
gauze off that will scream, oh my god, what happened
to that man. I'll smile. I'll smile at them, and
I'll tell them kids, this is a teachable moment. This
is a public service announcement from your friend on the radio.
(15:29):
I used to be the king of PSA. Is what happens.
This is what happens when you don't respect the onion.
I'm telling you respect the almighty onion. Now the good
news again, my finger is still attached. The bad news,
the chunk of my flesh is gone. The ego is
(15:49):
not attached as much a homemade costume. I would tell
you though, this homemade costume unforgettable, unforgettable. After all, there
is nothing, nothing that says Halloween like the authentic droplets
of blood on your apron and a story that begins
(16:14):
It was supposed to be a quiet lunch by myself,
and then you'll never believe what happened next. You'll never
ever believe it. All right, turn the page on that
we go to the great radio Pilgrimage in sin City.
(16:36):
That's right, beautiful sin City. So people go to Vegas
to gamble, to take part in all kinds of debauchery,
to party, to lose all sense of time and place.
We know that I go to Vegas three or four
times a year. Now. I went there to renew this
(16:58):
last weekend there, to renew my vows with radio, or
at least to confirm that the almighty, all powerful, omnipresent
magic Radio Box still exists on the big stage. When
it seems like most people get their content from TikTok
(17:21):
and Instagram and they get to that social media dopamine
slot machine going and all that stuff, you realize that
it's a bit of a rig game, right, that social media. Yeah,
everyone's on there, but how many people are active on
there and whatnot. So it turns out that there's a
lot there. The Magic Radio Box still exists and it
(17:44):
is great. So this past weekend, again I found myself
bleary eyed and heavily over the caffeinated with those caffeine supplements.
I got at CBS doing the Bend Maler Show, The
Bend Maler Show from the world class iHeart Studios on
Fremont Street. I am blown away. I said it last time,
(18:06):
and I went in there again, and I want to
thank Ice, who's a big DJ star. She knows Flavor Flaves,
She's a big deal in Vegas and she kind of
runs that place at night. She came in there and
we were hanging out and it was cool. Nice to
see her again and anyway, moving on with sorry. So
I was there at the Iheartstudos Fremont Street now Fremont again.
(18:29):
For those of you that have not been to Vegas,
and for those of you that have been but haven't
been lately, Fremont Street is what happens when the civilized
world decides it's no longer interested in daylight. It is
a real life freak show. There is no admission. You
don't have to pay for admission. You just go through
(18:51):
some metal detectors. It's a freak show with free admission.
It's a human zoo. And unlike the San Diego Zoo,
where you might see a hippo or a heeling monster
or any other goblin that might be there, No, no, no,
it turns out that when you go to Fremont Street,
you don't have to pay. It's a human zoo and
it's where you can see everything from grown men wearing
(19:14):
diapers to women wearing pasties who probably shouldn't be wearing pasties.
You know, we should maybe had one less cheeseburger. And
I'm the last guy to talk. And then Elvis impersonators
up the wazoo a little bit of everything. I got
cover bands, there's music, there's zip lines. It is sensory overload,
(19:34):
is what it is. It's also humanity's clearance rack. It is.
So I wrap up the overnight show in Vegas, and
I wrap it up. I wrap it up. It's like
three in the morning. Right, Wait, this this works. I
(19:55):
wrap it up, and I have some other business I
have to take care of, so I can't just leave
right away. But that's the witching hour at three am.
That's the witching hour for the degenerate and the dreamer
in that part of Vegas, Old Vegas and then or
downtown base what you're gonna call it at locals, I
think say Downtown, Others say Fremont, whatever, it doesn't really matter.
(20:18):
You get the point. So, because the job requires a
certain level of lunacy when you do this kind of work,
I drag my fat ass and I took my lovely
wife over to New York, New York, down on the
Strip for the Power Trip Morning show from Kfan in Minneapolis, Kfan, Kfan. Now,
(20:43):
if you live outside the Twin Cities, and by the way,
my hand is raised, I do live outside the Twin Cities,
you might not grasp the gravitational pull of the Power Trip. Well, Ben,
it's just a little morning show, It's all it is.
Don't embellish it. We don't need puffery. What is wrong
with you? I don't do that. Okay, time out. This
(21:04):
is not puffery. This is not embellishment. It is not
I promise you I will let you know next time
I go down that road. So the morning show, the
Power Trip. The big stars the players are Chris hockey,
or Hawkeye as we call hockey. His nicknames is the
Hawk Corey and then Meat Sauce, whose real name is Paul,
but he goes by the name Meat Sauce. And so
(21:26):
these guys, Hawk Corey and Meat Sauce are the three
Musketeers of Minnesota mornings. One part sports, one part stand
up comedy, and one part group therapy. And by any
measurement and by every metric, they are a phenomena. They
(21:49):
are and tip of the headphones from one radio guide
to another, and they're very kind. They liked the overnight
show where they'll lead in on the network. They carry
us overnight on Kfan, And to put in perspective about
how bonkers this whole thing was, there were listeners and
not just a few listeners that plan their vacations around
(22:13):
these guys. The show is simulcast across the iHeart and
a bunch of iHeart stations in Minnesota. It's also streamed online.
They've got a massive following rivaling you know, you think
about like some football teams that have no fans, like
a small market NFL franchise. And on this particular weekend,
(22:35):
they were broadcasting in Vegas and that's how I, the
overnight Vampire from Fox Sports Radio, ended up in their orbit,
and I had actually met Hawk. I think we talked
about this. I met Hawk a little while back thanks
to some Mallard Militia listeners in Minnesota who are big
fans of both shows who connected us the last time
(22:57):
I was in Vegas and Hawk happened to be there. Now,
originally the plan was when I had seen Hawk the
last time, I said, oh, yeah, he guess he works
for the Vikings. He does some of the radio stuff
for the Minnesota Vikings. So I figured, well, the plan
would be to hang out when the Vikings played the
Chargers at Sofi Stadium, that I'd go there, I'd prepare
for my radio show. I'd get to see the quick
(23:18):
five minute hey, how you're doing good, to catch up
with you and all that stuff. So that was the plan.
The Vikings weren't time to play the Chargers last Thursday,
or I guess two thursdays ago, because last night we
had the Ravens absolutely dismember the Dolphins. Back to the story,
so you know, here we are the Chargers and Vikings,
two teams that could lose a coin toss with a
(23:40):
Magnet and I was going to go to the game
and Hawk had text me a couple of weeks earlier.
He's like, hey, you know, I think I forget exactly
what he said. We said we're going to be in Vegas.
I think he said something like the guys want to
meet you on the show. And so he invited me
on their show, and I could not resist. I love radio,
and I've heard so many crazy things about how good
(24:02):
the show is and how popular the show is and
all this stuff. The Minnesota audience is just different. It
just cuts different. And you guys had hyped these guys
up on Power Trip for a while. People were prank
calling us with meat sauce, saying meat sauce and all
that stuff. So you guys had been telling me that
this was the show, the Power Trip. This was it right,
This is like the Beatles of bloviating. So I wanted
(24:26):
to see with all of the gusto I have or
the what it was in living color. I wanted to
witness it the hullaballoo. So there I was. I made
a last minute trip to Las Vegas. Now my wife
was with me, and she asked me as we were
leaving Fremont Street, the iHeart Studios, going to the hotel
(24:47):
for a second and going to the event. She asked me,
She's like, well, you know who's going to be there,
Who's gonna be on hand? Do I need to get
dressed up for this? As is anyone going to be there?
And I told her, I said, listen, this popular show,
it's a local show. They're sixteen hundred miles or whatever
it is away from the Twin Cities. It's four in
the morning. Just don't expect much. I know it's a
(25:10):
popular show, but who's going to show up here at
this time? It was four in the morning. And so
you know what happens when you assume, right, you know,
we all know what happens when you assume. So I
parked the car, I pay my twenty five dollars for parking.
I'm paying seventy dollars in Vegas for a little over
twenty four hours. Ended up paying seventy dollars to park
(25:32):
the car. You know how much you paid to park
the car for? I don't know. Thirty years up until
about ten years ago, nothing, nothing. It was free. Everywhere
was free. If they've charged for parking, you didn't go
you said you ignored it. That's it anyway, So I
assumed there would be very few people there. I'm walking
through New York, New York, after paying, you know, getting
(25:52):
ripped off for the parking, and I was waiting with
baited breath to find tumbleweeds to the right direct from Russia,
an invasive species. And I thought there'd be a few chainsmoking,
probably older elderly women, and a few guys, maybe in
(26:13):
wheelchairs with oxygen, and there'd be some other guys that
were heavily intoxicated, some insomniacs clinging the slot machines. Instead,
I found something that I still marvel at. There were
hundreds of people in Minnesota, purple jerseys, hats. I didn't
(26:40):
see any face paint. There might have been some guy
in the back. I think he fell asleep. There was
a buzz kind of sounded like that, kind of sounded
like that that could light the strip up. It was
not just a crowd, it was a congregation. I was like, WHOA, Like,
I've done Mallard meet greets, and we get good crowds.
(27:01):
We get sometimes we don't get good growd with the
smallest one we ever had was in Wisconsin. It was
last minute. It was Appleton, Wisconsin. We do pretty well
in Boston. We've done well. In La we've done well.
We've had good turnouts in Minnesota. By the way, was
amazing when we did the malar meat greet there in Minnesota.
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot
of fun. So anyway, I was like, okay, so there
(27:23):
are all these people. It was not just a crowd.
It was like, like I said, it was bigger than that.
You don't get that in radio much anymore, in an
era where the corporate machine is worried about one thing
and one thing only the bottom line. That's all that matters.
And the goal of many of these mega media companies
is not a good product. They want a product you'll
(27:46):
listen to. It doesn't have to be good. The main
goal is just nickel and dime everything low ball here.
You know, they can't give you that there all that stuff.
Now we know that every one's chasing clicks and the
algorithm and all that. But these guys have created a
real a real community, I guess is the word I'll
(28:09):
use again as something that is tangible. And so this
was a chicken soup for the Broadcast Soul chicken soup
for the Broadcast Soul. It was like bone broth that
went right into my bones. And it reminded me why
I got in to this racket years ago in the
(28:30):
first place, when I decided to go down that road,
and I could have been a doctor or a lawyer,
some kind of Wall Street guy, and I went down
this road, so I got in this racket. And that
the connection, the bond, the live wire between a microphone
and a fan base, that just feels something. There's something there,
(28:50):
the communal aspect of it, that you're all listening to
the same thing at the same time, you're all part
of it. So we're pretty lucky. We're pretty lucky you
and I because we have that in the Mallard Militia.
We have that. These guys found it in Morning Drive
in Minnesota, and congratulations, good job by them. They don't
need Meda corasulate them. They've done a great job. Moving
on with the story, the Power Trip Fellas from Minnesota.
(29:14):
The Power Trip Fellas. They even allowed me access behind
the velvet ropes to take part in the crown jewel
of their show, the segment of segments every Friday. It's
the Initials Game. Well, what the f is the Initials Game?
I don't know what that is for the uninitiated, and
I was part of that. It's kind of like Jeopardy
(29:36):
Cross with Wheel of Fortune, only a little bit louder,
hopefully funnier, and very competitive, much more competitive than those shows.
Now they've been doing this for years. I was on
episode six hundred. They have their own standalone podcast on iHeart.
The podcast allows you to play along the Initials game,
(29:57):
and so this has become a regional phenomenon. They actually
sell the home version online. They sell a fair amount
of copies around the Upper Midwest. And there's really no pressure, right,
I mean, here am I here? I am rather here.
I am just showing up, you know, I'm the guest
and all that. And I actually practiced. The guys told
(30:17):
me they wanted me to be on this, and so
I was like, okay, I'll do it. I'll practice. And
so I went in the car and I turned on
their podcast and I listened and I was yapping away
talking about you know whatever, and you know, kind of
playing along. And sure enough, I practiced, and when it
was showtime the lights came on, I ended up surrounded
(30:38):
by savants. Hawk and Meat Sauce were like Mozart and
Da Vinci, except they had a buzzer, which was their name,
and they rattled off answers before I could even process
the first clue boom, and I was shut out early.
I was shut out. I'm not going to sit here
and do revisions history. But redemption came in the bonus
(31:03):
round and the initials were gl and I got Great Lakes.
That was me. They didn't give it to me. They
didn't hand it to me. Nobody told me what the
word was. I scored Great Lakes. Mission accomplished. So after
the show, the many fans there that were not there
to see me, they were there to hang out with
the power Trip. They wanted a little FaceTime after the event,
(31:27):
and many of them had Again, I just want to
stress how crazy this is. These people flew out to
La to watch the Vikings play the Chargers. It then
drove all night from in the hood in Inglewood and
up no good. So they drove all night from Inglewood
(31:48):
near Lax through the California desert just to be there
after watching their Vikings get mollywopped by the Chargers and
they weren't chasing fame or prizes. They were just chasing
that bond between a listener and the radio show. And
I did have a chance to talk to some of
(32:09):
these people. You know who you are. If you're listening
right now, you might remember our conversation. It is interesting
to note that a few of the people said that
they were just in Vegas for the morning show at
the Power Trip. They were then planning on driving back
to la because apparently the and I didn't check the
Timberwolves and the Lakers played the game, so they were
(32:30):
planning on sticking around to watch that game. So okay,
and met I didn't write any notes down, but I
met the guy. One of the guys was there. He's
sitting in the front on the right hand side. He
works at a pepsi plant in Minnesota. He told me
that the boys listen all the time, that they're fans
of the show. They bottle pepsi products in Minnesota. There
(32:54):
was another gentleman who was there with his wife who
she's from Dallas. I remember he's from he's from Minnesota
and now they're both in Denver. And unless unless what
he told me was wrong or I made it up,
in my head, I believe he had said, since he
(33:14):
lives in Denver, he's had the Mallor. Now, what is
the Mallor? I don't know what the malor is. The
Mallor is one of the most delicious things you can
possibly have. It is well. The Mallor is available at
the Sportsbook Bar and Grill. There are multiple locations in
the Greater Denver area. They are not paying me to
tell you about this. I just want to get the
word out. We spent so much time promoting the Ben
(33:36):
Mallard chicken. Fingers often lost in the shuffle, Often lost
in the shuffle. Is this The Sportsbook Bar and Grill
has the Mallor. That's the name of it, the mallar
buffalo chicken. They have the fried chicken breast tossed in
hot sauce. They have the lettuce, the tomato. If you
want to go that, I go, no tomato on mine.
(33:57):
They have blue cheese. I don't need the blue cheese.
I'm good. I don't need the blue cheese. But it's delicious.
I recommend it, highly recommended it anyway. But despite that,
again we lined up, met some fans, took some photos,
and at the very end there, I was running on
fumes and the caffeine had worn out. So I stumbled
back to the hotel, which was off the strip, one
(34:18):
of the few hotels that has free parking, very important
much so I paid seventy five dollars for parking, and
I didn't even have to pay at the hotel. We
stayed at seventy five dollars. Went to the place we
do the radio show at the iHeart Studios, had to
pay for that. Well, you work for iHeart, you shouldn't
have to pay. Okay, we'll let the people over there know.
Let them know everything got turned off, including what happened
(34:44):
in we just mentioned here the whole thing shut down
and all that stuff. So anyway, I just loved the
tremendous vibe that was out there, and so I went
back to the hotel. I crashed. The ears were still
ringing with laughter and applause. And it wasn't about me.
(35:07):
It was about the medium. A reminder that even in
twenty twenty five, when everyone's jaded and yours truly as well,
and the algorithm is the almighty, all powerful king, it's
not about how many people listen, it's how many people
click and radio still has more than a pulsip. Radio
(35:28):
to me is like baseball. For two hundred years, or
at least one hundred and fifty, people have been writing
stories that baseball's boring, baseball's dead, Baseball's not gonna make it.
All of these stories right year after year, and it
just keeps on going. It just keeps on going and
going and going. And the funny thing is more people
(35:51):
now want to do radio than they ever before in
the history of radio. Radio has never been more popular
than it is today. And What's My evidence podcast? Whether
it's consuming podcasting like this show, or whether or not
it is doing your own podcast. There are so many
people that want to do podcasts and want to listen
to podcasts. God bless them because this is a podcast.
(36:12):
But get to the point, please. So the point is.
The point is that when you're doing a podcast or
listening to a podcast, it's radio without the radio. However,
it's still radio. You're doing broadcast work, you're doing spoken word.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I know some of the podcasts are on video and
some of the radio shows are on video. The point is,
though the essence of it, the ethos of it, is
that it is a audio program. That you don't have
to sit there and watch the show. You can. You
can do what you want, right, You can do what
you want, and so listen. Vegas just has its own sound,
(36:53):
of course, is the slot machines, the sirens, the constant
hum people trying to win something, to get out of
a deep dark place. However, tucked inside a casino at
New York, New York, at dawn, I saw something better.
(37:15):
I saw something better. There were a bunch of proud Minnesotans,
Minnesota and Ice, proving that when the right voices come
through the speakers, people still show up. And they weren't
there for a jackpot because nobody won that. They were
there for a connection. They were there for a connection,
(37:35):
and it was pretty freaking cool. It really was. All Right,
we'll leave you on that note. We'll see what happens
tonight with the Dodgers. We should have a very Dodger
centric fifth hour. I will put together some Mallard monologues
after the game, and we'll come in here early tomorrow
on Saturday morning, the first day of November, and we'll
(37:59):
cobble together a malamool I hopefully Danny will be with me.
I'm not sure he's Halloween weekend. He might be out
of town. I don't know, but there it is. All right.
We'll put the baby to bed, have a wonderful, gious
rest of your Halloween. We'll see what happens with the
Dodgers and Jays tonight, and I we'll catch you next
time later, skater asta pasta. See that's see, Danny, that's
(38:25):
the part, Danny. That's the part where we end this
right here. See this is the end part. Yeah, that's
it right there, we end it. Yeah, that's right. Okay,
hit that that what you might call yeah, hit to
what you mightna call it? Got a murder. I gotta go,
thank you, okay, bye bye
Host
Ben Maller
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