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July 11, 2026 38 mins

On this supersized edition of the Fifth Hour, Ben Maller takes you on another audio road trip, bouncing from the music of Roy Orbison to the surprising origin of the ice cream sundae—which exists thanks to old alcohol laws. Along the way you'll learn about star berries, population shifts that could reshape the world, and a collection of oddball fun facts worthy of the Maller Militia Hall of Fame.

Then it's time for the main event.

This is the official preview of MallerPalooza™ 2026, the annual celebration of controlled chaos where a vaudeville variety show collides with David Letterman's Stupid Human Tricks and The Gong Show. Ben pulls back the curtain on what separates unforgettable acts from instant disasters, reveals the exclusive celebrity judge for this year's spectacle, and gives newcomers a crash course on what makes the biggest night in Summer overnight sports radio unlike anything else on the air.

As if that weren't enough, the Idiom of the Week adds one final splash of razzle-dazzle, proving there are no crocodile tears when it comes to great storytelling, strange trivia, and offbeat laughs. Buckle up, hit play, and enjoy another globe-trotting, fact-packed, theater-of-the-mind adventure that only Ben Maller can deliver.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kabooms.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's a clearinghouse of hot takes. Break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Air eywhere the Fifth Hour with me Ben malor Happy
Saturday to you. It is the eleventh day of July.
There are one hundred and seventy three days ago. We
were recording this early on Saturday. It is the twenty
eighth week of the year. We have a poalooser preview

(00:54):
that is a global exclusive. We'll get to that in
a couple of minutes. Also the idiom of the week,
if we have time for that. And today is the
eleventh of July, as mentioned, which means there are some
dope holidays. It is Cheer Up the Lonely Day. And
I attempted to find a fun fact about Cheering up
the Lonely Day, and the only thing I could find
is that the most famous song there are two songs

(01:17):
that are famous about lonely. The most famous is a
Roy Orbison song Only the Lonely from nineteen sixty. Now,
a couple years later there was a guy named Bobby
Vinton who came out with mister Lonely, and that was
in nineteen sixty two. So those are my fun facts
about cheer up the Lonely Day. We have make your

(01:38):
own Sunday Day. Now, this one I love. This is
one of those that I will use down the line.
I'm not sure how I'm going to use it, but
I will use it down the line. So did you
know the roots of the ice cream Sunday go back
to the eighteen hundreds and blue laws that were in

(01:58):
America back in the day the eighteen hundreds, and they
said many places said stores could not sell booze, they
couldn't sell alcohol related products on Sunday, the Lord's Day, right,
And among the items that could not be sold on
Sunday was soda, so well, who the hell cares well?

(02:18):
Soda was very popular at the time. Ice cream sodas
were even more popular, and as a result, the people
that made ice cream couldn't make any money on Sunday,
so they came up with alternatives, which eventually led to
the birth of the ice Cream Sunday. Right ice Cream Sunday,

(02:39):
The creation was made here. Now, the controversy is said
to be about who exactly was the first person to
come up with it. There were three different factions of
Big ice Cream Sunday that claimed they came up with
it as their own. The most famous theory is it

(03:00):
started in Riverside, Wisconsin. That is believed to be the
origin Patient zero in eighteen eighty one, So we're looking
at almost one hundred and fifty years ago. This guy
named Edward Berner. As I read on the dark Web,

(03:23):
this guy had a customer who was unable to have
his beloved ice cream soda on a Sunday because of
the Blue Laws. So this guy asked the guy, Edward Berner.
The customer said, can you put some chocolate sauce on
top of some vanilla ice creams? So you know how
much would that cost? Well, that'll cost you a nickel. Okay,
I'll pay a nickel and there we go. Then in

(03:46):
eighteen ninety there was a different location, different location, a
different story where somebody put chocolate sauce on ice cream
and named it tag so nn tag, which is German
for Sunday. And then also around that time, there was

(04:10):
a minister and a pharmacy, a buddy of his who
ran a pharmacy who created a Sunday that was an Ithaca,
New York hometown of Tom Looney. And the guy covered
the ice cream with cherry syrup candied cherries and named
it cherry Sunday. And I do like the fact that
the ice cream Sunday is spelled s u n dae

(04:35):
as opposed to the normal way you spell Sunday. It
is also National Blueberry Muffin Day. And is it true
that Native Americans called blueberries starberries. It's a pretty good name.
I like that. There's also a basketball player that was
not very good in the NBA that had the nickname

(04:55):
Starberry as well. Blueberry muffins. According to the theory, the
European settlers that came over from the Old Country brought
them and a recipe for billbury muffins, and billberries were
not to be found in the New World. However, wild

(05:18):
blueberries native to the Americans were both plentiful and delicious,
so that is the story. But the blueberry muffin thing was.
It should have been the Billberry muffin, but they didn't
have any of those, So there you go. It's also
National World Population Day or Global World Population Day, which
started in nineteen eighty seven. People became interested in five

(05:45):
billion Day. That is when it is estimated the growth
of humanity crossed five billion, and it has increased steadily
since medieval times. Of course, remember medieval times. All those
people in their chateaus in Europe didn't know they were
living in medieval times. They were just living in the day.
They were just living in today. Core of the United

(06:07):
Nations Population Fund, there are an estimated eight point three
billion men, women, and children that are living amongst us
in this mortal coil here in twenty twenty six. Sometime
in the next couple of years, we will have a
new leader. Right now, China is the most populous country
in the world. The way it's going China limiting. They

(06:29):
put the restrictor plate on going to poundtown, so there's
not as much baby making going on. And India they
say we want the Boomshaka laka, and so India is
going to surpass China as the most populous country in
the world. So that is coming up, and the world's population.

(06:52):
It is estimated if we're still alive, you and I
in twenty fifty that they will reach over nine billion people.
Nine billion people, So that's that's a lot. It's seven
and one hundred million more people than right now, and
over eleven billion by twenty one hundred. And I'll be
gone by then, but eleven billion by twenty one hundred,

(07:16):
So it is World Population Day. On that note, though,
we now move into the main event. I've gotten a
number of email from people recently asking what the f
is going on with this mallard palooza. I don't know
what that is, and so I would like to explain.
I do this on a yearly basis. We normally just
do the Mallipalooza postgame show on the Fifth Hour podcast. However,

(07:39):
since I have gotten a number of people that seem
genuinely confused, like they're being hornswaggled by this mallepoluza. So
what is the malapalooza that you keep yapping about? You
ask me, So I'm going to attempt to tell you
what it is. It is madness. It is an annual

(07:59):
rite of passage, a descent into the audio Abyss. It
is a midsummer cry for help on overnight radio, disguised
as a variety show, brought to you by the one
and only Ben Maler Show. Now they tell me this
is a tent pole event. I had a programm back
there to day, but you got to have some ten
pole events. Well, my old boss, Mike, this is a

(08:23):
tent pole event a pace center. We're talking big box office,
big boxes now. Personally, all right, I think it's what
happens when a radio gasbag realizes the real NFL season.
We're still two months away now. I know training camp
is going to open in a few weeks. Who cares.

(08:45):
All that's good for is injuries and some dope soundbites
from Jerry Jones talking about her. This is the year
the Cowboys and all that stuff. So the real NFL
doesn't start until September, so we're in July. We got
some time. We got some time to go the baseball
seasons in the dog days. They got the All Star
Game coming up this week in Philadelphia. There's a bit

(09:07):
of a lull there where everyone's kind of just sweating
through their polyester pants, and the programmed department at the
Mighty Fox Sports radio network desperately needing to get podcasts downloads,
especially from the Overnight Show, unless they don't care. I
would like to entertain the building security guards before they
find out what's actually happening. So they call it, and

(09:27):
we've come up with a name. We used to call
it something else, but it's the Malord Paloose at twenty
twenty six. Some have said it's a cry for help.
I would include myself in that. Now, if you are
again new to the store, and apparently the audience continues
to grow, which implies a staggering level of late night
insomnia sweeping the United States, you might be wondering how

(09:48):
on God's green Earth did we get here. So in
the spring, if you're familiar with the show, we have
something called the Benny Ords. Oh, the Benny Ords. Classy, elegant,
at least as elegant as overnight talk radio can get.
Where we celebrate the craziness, the zaniness of the overnight

(10:13):
caller and listen. These are people that are just hidden
in the shadows, right They give us entertainment from the
cabs of long haul semi trucks, uber's basement apartments shared
with two ferrets, and their mom. In the fall, they

(10:36):
have something called football. As we said, that's the meat
and potatoes the NFL season. Now we do have Benny
Versus the Penny, which is a spin off and hasn't
been on The Ben Malor Show for a few years
because it was on TV and YouTube and whatnot. But
that's like a real sport, like grown men, gladiators crashing
into each other for money, money, money, So we don't

(11:00):
need any kind of shtikola, as my grandfather would say,
our gimmicks in the month of October or November. The
pig skin pays the bills. The pig skin pays the bills,
keeps the lights on. Now we're in July, and July,
as you know, is a much different animal. A lot

(11:20):
of summer vacations going on right now. Hey, I'm out
and about where can I hear the show? I'm going
to Orlando. Well, we're on the radio in Orlando. That's great.
What station, I don't know, look it up. And July
is the Sahara Desert or death Valley of the sports calendar.
Now I don't believe in the whole dead zone. My
buddy JT. The Brick famously came up with the term

(11:41):
the dead zone. I think he called it this time
of the year. I don't really agree with that. In
the Internet age, that was the case early in my
career when I got into the business and there was
no interweb. Right now, at any moment, we have thousands
of professional athletes that have a content machine in front
of them and will give us content. It's called the

(12:04):
social network, and so with that it's the great equalizer.
There really are no slow days now. There are days
where things are more fun, and there are stories that
are more enjoyable to talk about and to get into.
And so that is reality. That is absolute reality. However,
it's not as bare as it was at one point,

(12:26):
and it will never be that bear again. And so
under the audio big top we get the malor Palooza.
Think of it like a Vaudvillian variety show from the
glory days of show business. If the glory days of
show business were curated by a manic, depressive carnival barker

(12:48):
fueled by steel coffee, it's David Letterman stupid human tricks.
Minus the network budget. We don't have the big budget.
We can barely barely afford to clean the studio of
course we don't have the professional lighting, although we do
a lot of lighting now, and I don't think we
have any live music in studio. The house band is

(13:09):
not Paul Schaeffer's band to drown out the awkward silence.
So it's a little bit of vaudeville. It's a little
bit of David Letterman stupid human tricks. It's the Gong Show.
It's by all accounts, a cavalcade of clowns. I'm surprised
we haven't gotten the flying malar Maniacs. I will tell
you the Malapluza twenty twenty six. It is built to

(13:32):
a maze, assuming you are amazed by things that generally
shouldn't be broadcast over a fifty thousand watt clear channel
transmitter or six hundred radio stations. Now, let me be clear.
The rules of engagement here if you're new to the Mallipluzer,
if you've forgotten because it only happens once a year,

(13:53):
the rules of engagement here, because sometimes you get confused.
This is radio. Oh by god, he said radio. I
thought you can't say the word radio. It's audio. I'm
old school. I go radio. It is theater of the
mind at its essence radio, and that's what I love
about it. You can create these amazing, amazing visuals through words.

(14:16):
So it's theater of the mind. It is a playground
of and for the mindless, unless it's not. And usually,
let's be perfectly transparent here, we are completely mindless, whether
it's hollering James talking about showering once every other day
and bowel movements or something other ridiculous about who wants

(14:39):
to sleep with all that stuff. Therefore, certain artistic disciplines
are strictly forbidden. So for the maletpalooza, let's talk dancing.
You could be out there shaking your hips like Shakira.
You could have the rhythm of a young Gene Kelly.
You could be doing the tango, the fox trot, or

(14:59):
some avant garde interpretive peace about the geopolitical climate of
Western Europe. So you know what that sounds like on
a six hundred affiliate terrestrial radio network at three in
the morning, it sounds like heavy breathing and squeaky sneakers.
It's dead air, mom man, it's dead air. Same goes
if you're a contortionist, if you want to twist yourself

(15:21):
into becoming a human pretzel mazel tov. That is wonderful
that you can do that, and it's great for you
and your chiropractor. But but unless your joints make very
loud noises, very loud noises, rhythmic popping sounds that can

(15:45):
be set to a baseline, I'm telling you right now,
it does not translate to our format. It's useless to
us find a TV show. It's useless for us our
a YouTube show. So that's the that's the deal here.
What does work for us is your proprietary blend the

(16:06):
high art of the late night airways. Be creative, make
it your own stand out, all right, come on, I
don't know, I don't need to go full doctor Seussnya.
You know what I'm saying now, First and foremost, we
love the song parodies. This is really the bread and
butter of what we do, the changing of lyrics to

(16:27):
make it unique. It's the highest form of audio flattery,
or at least the highest form of copyright infringement we
can get away with. Before the legal department wakes up
sometime around nine am, think of the iconic weird Al Yankovich,
still going, still performing The Master, the Goat, the gold standard.

(16:47):
The man took the knacks my Sharona back in the
day and gave the world my Bologna, my bologne. He
took Queen's Majestic Stadium Shaking in Anthon, which got played
for fifty years. Another one bites the dust and thought, no, no, no,
no no. What this needs is a city transit bus.

(17:09):
Another one rides the bus. Another one rides the bus.
He took Michael Jackson, the king of pop song beat
or beat It, rather beat It, a song that featured
Eddie Van Halen doing a guitar solo for crying out loud,
and weird Al turned that into an anthem for overeating

(17:30):
called eat It. And how about Madonna's Like a Virgin
became Like a Surgeon? Now my personal favorite, because I
know you're very concerned, You're very worried. Well, what is
malar like? My personal favorite. The absolute pinnacle of weird
Al Yankovic's music library. When rapper Koolio came up with

(17:52):
Gangster's Paradise, which is still played, he gets some play.
People love the song. All these years later, weird Al
morphed that in to Amish Paradise. When you can rhyme
churning butter with pity the fool. You have achieved artistic immortality,
and that is weird, al Yankee Vish. Now do I

(18:13):
expect you to do that? No? I don't. However, I
just want to hear the fun and the frivolity, the
skullduggery that you can come up with. And that's what
we're looking for. We want you to take something beautiful
and make it bizarre, weird, that's what we want. It's fun.
We've had comedy in the past. Last year, we had

(18:35):
a kid caller the last couple of years, Bennett the
comedian he hasn't called a long time, and his younger sister.
They were great. They were great. They brought the youth,
they brought the energy. But let's be perfectly honest. We
can talk about this on the podcast. Podcast does very well,
does not do as well as the radio show. So

(18:57):
each of us, right, you and I side side, know
that stand up comedy is very risky on the radio.
It's risky business. It is a tightrope walk over a
canyon of silence. It's like doing stand up with some
Buddhist monks who are taking a vow of silence. Well,

(19:17):
You're not gonna get a lot of laughs. There is
no live audience, there's no laugh track. You are standing
on an island, sweating into a microphone telling a joke
about I don't know, airline food or suntanlocean, waiting to
see if one of the people on the show, whether
it's me, Ben or the Rain or Coop or third

(19:40):
or fourth man in the studio, whoever's in the control room,
is laughing or just coughing up a piece of a
bagel they had a few hours ago. It's terrifying. It's neurotic.
I don't know why people do it, but they still
want to do it. I get hives just thinking about it.
So no, it's the unique acts that really get me.

(20:01):
The bizarre, as I said, the utterly pointless talents that
have no business existing in polite society, yet thrive in
the dark corners of the AM slash FM radio dial.
Now take to one. I often reference the Boston Burper,
one of my absolute favorites. I've been doing this job

(20:21):
a long time. I love the Boston Burper. The name,
the shtick. A man who has over the years disciplined
his digestive track based on some soda and some other things.
He eats beans to point where he becomes this woodwind instrument.
He's not just a human being. It's like a transformer.

(20:43):
And then we had a guy thinking from Iowa, Kansas,
one of those farming states, who could sing while perfectly
mimicking a pig squealing. That's not just talent. That is
a lifestyle choice. Okay, that's something you practice in the
barn while your family wonders where they went wrong. Okay,

(21:06):
And if you have to, if you have an utterly
pointless talent that translates to audio, we want you. We
want you. The Malard Palooza is your Ellis Island, right.
We want your tired, your poor, your huddle masses who
can make music by snapping their fingers, popping their cheeks,

(21:27):
twisting their nose around, slapping their stomachs to a distinct beat.
That's what we want. And then of course the pitch
came across well people have said, well, what's the next
level that can really pass over the rubicon on Western civilization?

(21:47):
Can we get a guy to fart Ben Mahller with
his ass cheeks. If you can do it, I'm in.
If you can do it, I'm in Sign me up
for that, put me in coach, I'm ready to pay.
Put that on the marquee. We'll get amazing downloads on that.
If a man has achieved that level of muscular control,
that level of anatomical dedication, he deserves the biggest stage

(22:10):
we can give him overnight talk radio and the mallet palues.
He deserves six hundred plus stations death defying acts of courage. Really,
that would be one one wrong move, one miscalculation in
his dietary routine the night before. The entire bit goes sideways.
If instead of having the normal toot, if he has

(22:32):
let's just say, a wet one, that messes things up.
That's very dangerous. It's high stakes radio. You talk about
living on the edge, Living on the edge. That's it.
Because my core belief, as we chat here on the
Fifth Hour podcast, my core belief is the thing that
keeps me going when the bald part of my head

(22:54):
keeps growing and my right knee keeps creaking like it's haunted,
is that everyone, every one of us, me, you, the
people over there, the people we don't know, everyone is
given some superpower in life. That's my belief. Oh, you're
just full of crap malor whatever it might be. Maybe
you're blessed with good looks, you're a hot woman, you know,

(23:17):
and life's easier for you because you're hot chick, you know,
or or you're a guy and you just have natural strength,
something along those lines of you're a very hurry for
hurry furry. It's just that most people's superpowers are completely
useless in the corporate world. If you're a very tall,
curvaceous woman, you can make a lot of money as

(23:37):
a model. I guess if you're a very strong masculine man,
you can make money also as a model. Or the
world's just easier. You can't put can whistle two notes
at once on a resume on express pros and all
of a sudden get your dream job. It doesn't happen
if you have any working I saw this video this

(23:59):
week of a guy I at where was it? It
was a Chick fil A and this dude was rapping
bars about Chick fil A and it was pretty good, Like,
but he's working on a Chick fil A. You know
you're not. You know, I come on famous and that
maybe he will because of this video become famous and
get a record deal. I don't know. They don't generally
care if you can say the alphabet backwards under extreme pressure. However,

(24:24):
if you can do it on the mal of palooza
and there is a rumor one of our acts will
attempt that, that's awesome. All right here in the playground
of again the mindless. If you can whistle a harmony
with yourself, that's solid gold. All right, that's all good.
We want the animal sounds, not just a generic dog

(24:46):
bark or or or if we want a dog bark
so convincing that the listener can guess the specific breed.
Oh that was a weeder dog. Oh really, how did
you know it was a weeder dog? Well, it went
a little high when you want see just like that. Yeah,
oh wait a minute, hold a second. That's a bulldog.
But it's not an English bulldog. That's a French bulldog.

(25:07):
We used to have a French bulldog named Louis back
in the day. Right, you can name the age of
the dog, whether or not the dog has anxiety. We
want you beat boxing, famous sports songs, whatever that might be,
or even nonsports song no, no good bye. Just do it
on a diet of mountain dew and de Rito's and

(25:32):
all that we want on the mouthed Blues. The people
who can speak while inhaling, why why not? It sounds creepy,
can make people's hair on their arms stand up. Give
us a lightning fast tongue twister. Give us mouth trumpet
solos who says no, Give us the vocal drum machine,

(25:55):
battle Royale. Awesome. Show us your abilities, Just show us.
It's nerve wracking for some. I know if you're an introvert,
but that's a great thing about radio radio. Nobody can
see you. It's a big stage. The podcast downloads alone
for that show will set records for the entire summer,

(26:15):
if not the entire year, depending on what kind of
acts we get. Because people pass this around. It's awesome.
There are men, women and children listening live in their
cars obviously on the podcast. It's delayed their kitchens, security shacks,
driving around in security golf carts, the mall cop and

(26:35):
do not let the pressure get to you. Do not
let the neurotic dread wash over you like it washes
over me every time I look in the mirror or
try to program my thermostat. What's the thing of a
jig on that. You feel me on that? And who
you ask will be passing judgment on this carnival of

(26:56):
the bizarre? Who is the arbitrator of taste for the
mal of Militia twenty six, twenty twenty six Malapalooza. Well
we went out and spared no expense. We got a
freaking legend, a freaking legend, And I'll make this announcement
right now. I saved it for the fifth hour podcast.
I was going to announce something this week, and I
saved it for this. We didn't get some local YOKL

(27:20):
sports radio producer dude who thinks a high level cultural
experience is a two for one coupon at the olive garden. No,
we got the legend himself. Drum roll please, No, we
don't need a drum roll. Two words. INCA terror, Oh,

(27:45):
the terror of it all. Now, let's look at the
resume here. It is staggering, all right. This guy's lived
the life. He is a legit inca Indian and a
native of Peru. Like they're close to the moon up
there in Peru. He's not just a guy who thinks
about music and appreciates the arts. This is a guy

(28:07):
who tinkers on the keys. He lives that life. He
is a pianist, a world renowned soloist, we are told,
a recitalist, a chamber musician. This is a man who
has performed throughout the United States. He's got culture though.
He's performed in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Russia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan,

(28:30):
Hong Kong, and of course Peru. It's like the line
up for the World Cup. And I'm always blown away
by the fact that he's performed Inka terror at Carnegie Hall,
Famous Carnegie Hall. I've walked by carnegiea Hall many times
in New York and I thought, man, that's amazing, what
an amazing venue. And I know someone who's a radio

(28:51):
friend of mine who has performed there. How amazing is
that the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, he's performed there.
That's just sounds crazy. I mean, may it's possible. He
performed in front of putin the Philharmonic Hall in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
That probably goes back to before time. He has stood

(29:11):
before the elite of European society. He has performed flawless
concertos by legends legends of music. He's done it so
and now he is he is helping us out. He's
sitting in a I guess it's home with a pair

(29:33):
of headphones on listening to a guy from Kenosha who
howls at the moon while another guy tries to I
don't know flatulate my name. This is a career arc.
That is what I call varioty from the Great Hall
of Moscow to the Ben Mahler Show. And if you

(29:53):
want to know more about him, he's legit and I
do recommend supporting him. And I'd love for him to
sell out every concert he does in the future and
have Malard Militia guys come up to him after and
say hey, I heard you on the Ben Malor Show.
That would warn mayheart. If I only get one person
to do that, that would be great. Just one person
to go up to INCA and say, man, I found

(30:16):
you because of this dumb Ben Mahler show on this
fifth hour podcast. Go to incowarrior dot com. That's I
nca WA r r io r dot com incowarrior dot
com for more. This man deserves the clicks he does

(30:37):
just because of what we're going to put him through.
Now he has judged this before, so it's not his
first rodeo, and he may or may not have been
responsible for having a classically trained pianist, not him, enter
the contest from Seattle. All right, meanwhile, so how will
the contestants be judged by the great inca terror me

(30:58):
Coop and now we like the bust balls. However, we're
not savages. We have I don't know, I don't want
to speak for Coop and lorrain in them and Ninkotar.
I have four distinct pillars of excellence. Number one entertainment,
which means the wow factor. Did the act captivate the audience?

(31:18):
Was it exciting? Was it funny? Was it suspenseful? Was
it emotional? Was it memorable? Did we react to it?
Did I get a lot of good feedback on the
social media right or did people just stare at their
audio device and think, what the hell? Was that? Quality?
The skill level, the polish, the preparation, the execution. Did
you actually prepare for this? Did you do some work?

(31:40):
Did you just think, at the last minute, let me
just do this right now. Did you actually practice your
mouth trumpet solo? Did you decide to wing it after
your fourth beer, originality, creativity, unique, this fresh ideas, unexpected twists.
As we talked about, we want something unique. If you're

(32:01):
gonna call up and do some like nineteen seventies Howard
Cosell impression, then I'm just gonna walk on the four
h five freeway and say that's it. I'm out see either.
First of all, most people don't even know who Howard
Cosell is. Give us something that stands out all right,

(32:22):
these days they don't know who Casselle was speaking of sport.
The final point would be delivery, stage, presence, confidence, timing, pacing, energy, professionalism,
all that stuff. Right. Even if you are playing the
spoon against your kneecap, if that's your thing, do it
with the confidence of someone performing in a hamlet. Sell

(32:43):
it right. So there is That's how it's gonna go.
That's the ruling, you know. There it is. The Mala
plus at twenty twenty six is coming this Wednesday into Thursday,
late July fifteenth on the West coast two am on
July sixteenth, that's early in the morning on the sixteenth overnight,
and it is just going to be great. It's a

(33:05):
midsummer night's dream. If the dream was caused by eating
bad sushi before bed. And as the Great Pt. Barnum
once said, always have a little something for everyone. And
the noblest art is that of making others happy. And
we're trying to make you happy, or at least we

(33:26):
are trying to make you sure that you're not going
to be sleeping that day, and that you might give
us even a pity laugh. I'll take a pity laugh.
So come one, come all fun for all ages. You
won't believe your ears. People will stand spellbound with amazement
unless they don't either that or they'll just turn the
dial to an infomercial about bamboo pillows. If you buy now,

(33:49):
you'll get a free bamboo pillows, so two for one.
But we're betting on the ass cheek guy showing up.
If you want to enter this, there is time. There's
a few slots left. It's going quick. We're sitting here
on this Saturday. There's a handful of slots left that
we have if you want reach out Benmalershow at gmail
dot com for that Benmalers Show at gmail dot com.

(34:13):
So what pointless radio friendly talent are you secretly harboring
that the world will either be amazed by meaning incotr
or have him question his entire life's journey. Buckle up,
buck a roo, Buckle up, buck a roo. Now, meanwhile,

(34:33):
we have a little time left, so it's time now
for the idiom of the week. Now, the idiom of
the week is crocodile tears. Say what? The phrase crocodile
tears originates from an ancient belief that crocodiles would cry
while devouring a delicious meal, and it symbolizes At the time,

(34:57):
it symbolized the insincere or hypocritic display of emotion. Now,
the idea that crocodiles shed tears while eating their delicious
dinner dates back to ancient Greek times and Roman times,
and the historians that look back at the culture in
Greek or in Greece rather, this is like fifth century

(35:19):
before Christ and the Roman naturalists. They described the same
behavior in their writings on animals, portraying crocodiles as creatures
that appeared to mourn their prey while consuming it. So
it obviously meant to suggest that they had genuine empathy,

(35:39):
but they were hungry, they had an apathet, so they
had et The legend persisted through the Middle Ages, and
again in the Middle Ages. They just called it the Ages,
and it appeared in literature in the Middle Ages. In
the fourteenth century, there was a gentleman that described crocodiles
weeping over their prey in a travelog. That was before

(36:02):
they had YouTube. People still had travelogs back back then,
back then, and that's how that went. There was a
guy that suggested crocodiles feigned distress to lure prey. That
reinforced the metaphor of deceit. The phrase began to morph

(36:23):
a little bit, meaning insincere. That was in the sixteenth century.
In fifteen sixty three, it was used to describe counterfeit humility.
I begin to fear lest is humanity be the counterfeit
humility and the tears crocodile's tears. All right, Shakespeare, Yeah,

(36:44):
he's entered the chat. Shakespeare further popularized the expression in
Othello Henry five or Henry six part two and Anthony
and Cleopatra I believe as well. So Shakespeare was really
good similar names, though not that Henry Henry six part two?

(37:08):
What is that? Obviously, Today crocodile tears refer to fake
or exaggerated displays of grief or sympathy, often used to
manipulate to others, and the term is also inspired inspired
the medical condition I'm gonna butcher this b O G

(37:29):
O R A D. Bogorad's syndrome or crocodile teers syndrome.
This is apparently a thing where people involuntarily shed tears
while eating because there's a nerve that is wired the
wrong way. The dew Hickey's not working properly, and that
echoes the ancient legend. So there you go. Just to

(37:51):
put the ball on this. The phrase, of course, goes
back to ancient times and observations, and then literally it
was promoted by Shakespeare and others, and it has evolved
and it's still used today as a metaphor for being insincere.
On that note, we are gonna leave the audio dojo.

(38:12):
I got things to do. It is Saturday, and we
will have tomorrow Tomorrow the mail bag still sometime. If
you want to get a question in for the mailbag,
send it care of Ben Mahler. Oh No, fifth Hour,
Real fifth Hour, I screwed up. Give me the wrong email.
Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Real fifth Hour
at gmail dot com. And if you want credit, name

(38:34):
and city, name and city. I did check the email bag.
We got a bunch that didn't send their name and city,
which I don't get. What's the point of doing it
if you don't want credit, even if you put anonymous emailer.
I don't give a crap from Sheboygan. Don't matter to
me anyway. Have a great day and bye bye, as
Dick and Dayton would say, bye bye.
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Ben Maller

Ben Maller

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