December 20, 2025 • 27 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Saturday podcast for you! Stories about Santa Benny on a Firetruck and also being hit with a sleeper cell hot take!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and Danny g Radio. A Happy Saturday to you.
It is the twentieth day of December. We have NFL
football today, two games. As you can tell, it's getting
late in the year when they roll out the Saturday
NFL games, and we have you covered on Benny versus
(00:49):
the Penny. I know you have watched the Saturday special
Green Bay and Chicago. That is the big game of
the day, well week in a nod to the Eagles
and the Washington Commanders. Clearly not that big a game
because the Commanders are not only an NFL team they
blow but the Bears Packers game. That's gonna be a
(01:11):
good game. Looking forward to watching that later today, have
the Big Malard party thing of a jig which will
be taking place at some point today in an undisclosed location.
So we have that to look forward to as we
wind down twenty twenty five. And on this podcast we
have the Great Equalizer and Game of Thrones, well, the
(01:37):
Malord spin on the Game of Thrones. We have that
for you to look forward to as we celebrate today.
Not just your normal random Saturday. It's the dot your
Eyes Day. That's right. What the hell is dot your
eyes Day? Well, it's one of those fugazy holidays every
December twentieth every year, and you know the saying dot
(02:01):
your eyes and cross your t's. Well, today is when
you're supposed to dot your eyes. It's a very special day.
And the history of the day, well, it goes back sometimes,
I guess. I think it was eighteen forty nine there
was an article written and that was the first time
(02:22):
that expression dot your eyes and you know, cross your t's.
That eighteen forty nine, how about that the earliest known
evidence of that saying. And here we are all these
years later, and there we are. I guess technically it
goes back probably to like the three hundreds or something
like that. In eighteen forty nine, the idiom became official,
(02:46):
became kosher, and it was used as an expression in
an article. And all these years later, here we are.
We still do it to this day. So make sure
to dot your eyes. Let's get right into it. More
tail from the Naked City in the Malad Militia. It
was that magical day yet again. I told you on
the Friday Podcast that I was planning on talking about
(03:10):
my experience as Santa Benny on the Friday podcast, but
that injustice, that crime that took place in Seattle, I
had to do an emergency bonus Mallard monologue on the
Seahawks Rams game. So that aside, today's the day rights.
It was the magical day, the one that sneaks up
(03:32):
on the calendar, you know, it's like a mischievous elf,
if you will. And it was circled. It was on
my phone, on my iPhone, I had the date. It's
a yearly tradition, unlike any other That's what Jim Nantz
would say. Unlike any other Hello, friends or patrons or whatever. Anyway,
I much like the swallows returning the Mission San Juan
(03:53):
Capistrano or the Turkey vultures better known locally as the Buzzards,
because hey, this is America, and flapping back from their
southern migration to roost and Hinckley Ridge, Ohio. Much like that,
this was the day, the day that the guy you're
(04:15):
listening to became someone else. I transitioned, if you will.
We headed to the undisclosed city where my wife works,
a place I will not name because mysteries deserve to
be preserved, and I will preserve the mystery I will.
(04:35):
And there I arrived, I got out of the malamobile,
and I went into the metaphorical phone booth as just
a normal man named Ben Mahler, overnight sports radio guy,
dispenser of hot takes, cold pizza, metaphors, malarisms, all that,
and then abra cadabra, woila presto poof Ta da lo,
(05:02):
and behold, I merged as Santa BENI from head to
toe right now. Of course, it wasn't actually a phone booth,
was a men's bathroom at the city yard, but nevertheless,
in my head it was like a phone booth, and
I was completely decked out head to toe in the
(05:22):
iconic red Santa Claus outfit, the very same outfit that
was popularized by Coca Cola, and is now that you're
talking about the power of advertising, how big Coca Cola
was back in the day they came up with the
red Santa Claus and now it is universally accepted as
historical fact. And this, I should note, is one of
(05:46):
my favorite events of the year, every December for many
many years. I don't even know how many years it's been.
This is my routine. It is sacred in its own
goofy way. And I'll explain this to you. I'm gonna
cross boundaries here. I'm gonna explain this to Passover, you know,
growing up celebrating Passover. Why was this night different from
(06:10):
all other nights? And the four questions for Santa Beni.
On all other nights, we do not dress in costume.
On this night, we dress from head to toe. On
all other nights, we do not climb on the back
of a fire truck. On this night, we sit on
the back of a fire truck, right on the roof,
but on the back. On all other nights, we are introverted.
(06:32):
We try to avoid awkward conversations with strangers, and we
try to avoid putting ourselves out in front of everyone.
On this night we are extroverts. On all other nights
we keep a relatively low profile. On this night, we
are very much in the spotlight. Now. We got lucky.
We did, and luck does matter in these things. The
(06:54):
weather was cool, it was not frozen. We didn't get
any rain. The fire truck did not break down, the
engine work the entire night, All of these things. All
of these things have happened in the past, usually when
optimism was running high and we didn't really have any
contingency plans. Those were running low. And what was the experience,
(07:18):
Like I'm glad you asked, It was like being Mickey
Mouse in the Main Street USA Electrical Parade. You are
not just a person anymore. You are a symbol. Kids
waved and ran towards the truck like it was powered
by pure magic. Parents smiled, old people smiled. Middle aged
(07:42):
people who rarely smile without irony they smiled too. And
we have people waving from cars bringing their dogs to
see the show, from sidewalks, from the back of a
taco shop. There were some boys in the back waving.
There were people working in a drive through weed dispensary,
(08:02):
the smoke shop, and they seem pretty happy, and yes,
that's the modern American tapestry right there. You got tacos,
you got cannabis. You got a guy on the back
of a fire truck in a Santa costume riding around
town waving. Everyone smiles when they see old Saint maler
It is involuntary. It's a it's a reflex. You don't
(08:26):
fight it, you cannot fight it. You surrender. That's it.
And we covered a lot of real estate. I was
up there for four hours on the back of the
fire truck. We went from the middle class neighborhoods of
this town, where the cars had two hundred and seventy
eight thousand miles. The dashboard looked like its own Christmas
(08:47):
tree with all the warning lights, and then we went
up to the foothills, and then we went further up
where the people had Bentley's and Maybox. It's kind of
lounging in the driveway like pampered house cats, and everything
was perfect. It's quite the juxtaposition when you go from
the working class neighborhood to the really, really wealthy. However,
(09:09):
I did notice the same smiles, the same waves, the
same wonder and that's the thing. You're that red costume.
The Santa costume the great equalizer, it really is. And
as I have been doing it again, I don't know
how long it's been, It's been many, many years. As
(09:29):
a season Santa, let's call it like that. As a
season Santa, I have the routine down like the back
of my hand. Rule number one now, rule number one,
no eating or drinking before Santa Taurus. Cannot do it.
Cannot do it. Why is that? I'll tell you why.
Because the bathroom becomes a major endeavor, it becomes a quest.
(09:54):
It's a saga. It's a thing that the great philosophers
would have written three books about. The Santa outfit is
not designed for convenience, it's not. These costumes are designed
for the spectacle in mind. There's a lot of layers
to it. And the hardest part of the job, however,
(10:14):
is climbing down from the fire truck. And this is
where the job turns into something that goes from a
festive fun thing to evil canievil daredevil status. It's kind
of like that old song Hotel California. When you put
on the Santa suit and you get to the top
(10:34):
of the fire truck, you can check out any time
you like, but you can never leave once you're up there.
I'm a pretty tall guy, right, pretty tall guy, still
got a little weight to me. So I get up there,
and you're wrapped in layer after layer after layer. You
got the boots on the size of small kayaks. I've
(10:55):
already got big feet to start, and you realize that
you're fighting the g as in gravity if you will,
and gravity has the greatest winning percentage of all time,
it's undefeated. One little misstep and you are right into
an ambulance and then to the emergency room if you're lucky,
(11:18):
if you're lucky, or go. Getting down is an act
of faith, blind faith. Now, thankfully, on this night, when
the night ended, we did not have an incident, largely
because the group of firefighters that were driving the truck around.
They're the real heroes here in more ways than one.
They and the police officers, but the firemen. They helped
(11:40):
my fat ass off the fire truck, and I had
dignity mostly intact. There's a trust fall element to it.
You expect the ground obviously unforgiving, right, and your insurance
deductible is pretty high. It's pretty high, So you got
(12:01):
that going on and then all the fair like all
fairy tales, all fairy tales, and pretty much the same
way the taking off the clothes, you know, the Iron
Man suit, Santa's black boots turned back into a crappy
shoe at midnight, just like the fairy tale, and I
changed into my street clothes. I felt like Anthony Davis,
(12:23):
and I went over to raising canes to celebrate my
community service. Because nothing says goodwill towards fellow man like
chicken fingers, French fries and Texas toast. That's the way
to do it. That is the way to do it.
And just like that, it was ov R. Just like that,
(12:43):
it was over another chapter in The Naked City, another
reminder that for just one night a year, one night
a year, I don't know what it's going to be
until the last minute, but one night a year, under
the cover of darkness and fueled by moonlight, the overnight
gas bag gets to be something else. Entirely felt a
(13:09):
little bit like alf the Illin Opiner or ferg Dog
with their avatars, and so till December twenty twenty six.
Sometime in December of twenty twenty six, when the magic
night happens yet again, and I will be back in
the Santa costume to do it all over again, back
in the Santa costume again, to spend on the back
(13:32):
in the saddle, back in the saddle. All right, turn
the page on that. I wanted to mention something that
happened somewhat recently to me here. So I have learned
many things. I try to learn something new every day.
Normally it's a word or a phrase that I really
wasn't familiar with and tried to add a little something
(13:53):
to my lexicon. Work like the devil, I get that
in there, and so I do that. And one of
the things that I've learned over the years that does
not relate to words, but is a word. It's the
vibe you get from a word, say what yeah, let
me let me explain this better. So of all the
(14:13):
things that I've learned, the power of a phrase, which
is the word but that is a body blow, body blow,
body blow, body blow. It's an amazing word, the word butt.
And we've discussed it a little bit on the radio show.
It is a verbal landmine. It is a silk pillowcase
(14:37):
covering a brick. It's a hug that ends with a
knee to your testicles. It's the polite cough before the
doctor tells you, Hey, I think we've found something interesting here.
We got we gotta take a look at. Now. Recently,
I attended a family function with what I lovingly call
(14:59):
the Old Old Guard. The Old Guard. Now, this was
not a gathering. This was a museum exhibit, a seventy
and over event. And I'm getting older, and yet I
was still the spring chicken. Okay, I'm I'm getting older,
and yet these people were all much older than I was.
(15:21):
I was the young buck. I was the reckless youth.
I was sitting at the kiddie table because I actually
had cartilage still left in my knee, at least a
little bit. And so we had some local family. I
don't have a lot of family, and I'm not really
close with this group of people, but we did have
some family fly in from Arizona, which I love to
see some more of the Older Guard, and I know,
(15:42):
maybe maybe ten people, And there were a lot of people.
I mean maybe ten people I was familiar with at
this thing. The rest of the people were just strangers
drifting through the room, like background characters in a doors song.
People are strange people are strange when you're a stranger.
(16:03):
Jim Morrison would have enjoyed the setup, and so okay.
There I was gas bag man without a cape a jag,
just a guy by day and then an audio folk
hero by night, at least in my own head, circulating
(16:23):
around the room politely. I had my good manners. I
was shaking hands, I was smiling, I was nodding. I
was handing out metaphorical conversation candy canes to people that
I Some I hadn't seen a long time. Some I
hadn't seen a really long time. And then there were
people I hadn't seen ever. And this is what you
(16:44):
do at these events. I don't normally go to these events,
but as it felt like a big deal, I needed
to be there, So I went to this particular event.
You keep it light, You avoid the big three, politics, religion,
and anything involving who do you think is gonna win
the Super Bowl? I don't need that. If I knew
I wouldn't be here, I'd be in Vegas. I'd be rich.
(17:07):
If I knew that I'd be somewhere else. Also, the
advice the former boss Don Martin gave us as we
must stay away from the third rail. Momiam, that's the
third rail. Stay away, Okay, I'll stay away. Don no
third Rael. So then I ran into one of my
dear cousins, an older woman, very sharp, kind, warm hearted woman,
(17:29):
and we were catching up. I don't see this woman
very often, and so when we see each other at
the rare and appropriate family event, we exchange life updates,
the greatest hits. Now, eventually she asked the inevitable question,
the question that you knew was coming. You knew the
question was coming, the question, so how's the radio show? Okay,
(17:57):
can you ask me again? Yes, how's the radio show?
Let me meditate over that for a few minutes. No,
so she asked me that, Now this is the moment.
This is where we get the plot twist. This is
where you originally you hear somebody to say that when
they say how's the radio show, You're like, Okay, I'm
gonna take it. Lean back, I'm gonna wait for the compliment,
(18:18):
and my ego is gonna take a little small, harmless
sip of the good times and all that stuff. And
so she said, this is the next part. She said,
I tried to listen to your show. You sounded good,
and then she dropped the guillotine. But yes, so she
(18:41):
started out by saying, I tried to listen to your show.
You sounded good, and then but was sent out the
most dangerous syllable in the English language. But she said,
I had to turn it off because you rip women's
soccer and I love women's soccer, and you took a
shot at women's soccer and I didn't appreciate that. That
was a dagger to the heart. She might as well
(19:03):
have just call me blubber guts right there. What was
wrong with your blubberduts? Shame on you, You know, as
John Snow once famously said on Game of Thrones, a
man who learned this lesson the hard way. Everything a
person says before the word but is a lie. It
(19:24):
just is, which means mathematically, I did the Matler math
in my head. And not only mathematically, but spiritually and emotionally.
My radio show did not sound good to this woman.
My cousin was offended. She was offended. The hot take
struck a nerve. The fire breathing dragon had burned down
(19:48):
the village. Well that's not ideal, that's not what you're
looking for. And so she was damaged, and she was triggered.
She was emotionally confused by everything that she heard. She
needed a safe space, preferably one with a padded room.
No microphones, no speakers, nothing like that. And now here's
the part that sticks to your ribs like a thick
(20:11):
brisket left on the smoker a little bit too long.
That monologue that she was upset about, the one where
she said, I tried to listen to your show and
then she delivered the butt. Yeah, that's a universal thing
for a lie. But at that moment, I know's there
all right? Fine, The monologue aired in twenty twenty three,
(20:32):
almost three years ago. It's almost twenty twenty six, and
so the moment is still with me. Like sticking to
your ribs like a brisket, as I said, that was
in the smoker too long, and it's like a sleeper
cell that was activated all these years later, like a
bad actor or bad tattoo missed extra point. The actual event,
(20:57):
The actual event happened in twenty seventeen, so it was
even before that. Now, the monologue she referenced was in
twenty twenty three, and that's when the US women's national
team preparing for friendlies against Russia, scrimmaged the FC Dallas
under fifteen boys academy team, bunch of teenagers, and the
(21:20):
US women's national team lost five to two to a
bunch of teenage boys. Now that, for a while was
dismissed as internet legend. I remember hearing that's not true.
You fell for a conspiracy theory. Remember our conversation yesterday
about conspiracy theories. So anyway, okay, Well it was confirmed
(21:41):
by Carly Lloyd. She said, Yep, it absolutely happened. This
was real. It wasn't Internet folklore. It wasn't somebody posting
on Reddit. It wasn't some bot account on x. This
was a tune up game that went completely off the tracks,
completely upjets. This is the sports equivalent of the Lakers
(22:02):
losing to like University high School. Not because anyone hates
the Lakers but we do, not because anyone hates education,
although some of us do, but because reality sometimes crashes
the party uninvited and double parks in the driveway, which
we all love unless we don't. And here's the thing, now,
(22:25):
I smiled, I nodded, I traded niceties with my cousin,
as I said, and then I did what professionals do
when they know they are outnumbered, when they know they've
crossed into uncomfortable territory. I got up, I took a
deep breath. I looked around the room. I did inventory
of everything, what everyone was wearing. People I don't even
(22:48):
care about this stuff, but I was doing it. That
was going around, and so that was that. And you know,
I did play along, as I said, with my cousin
and played knics. I walked away. But the moment, at
that particular moment, I was reminded, well, it was uncomfortable.
(23:10):
It was a kind of a gently painful reminder of
the nuclear torpedo. My fingers on the button, and I
control this on a nightly basis. A microphone is not
a toy. It is not a toy. It's the iron throne.
It custs both ways. It amplifies the truth and a
(23:34):
fence at the same time and in the same volume.
And so you're not supposed to say the quiet part
out about everyone knows it, everyone thinks it, but you're
not supposed to say it. And sometimes on overnight radio,
fueled by caffeine supplements, conviction and the delusion that honesty
(23:56):
is always a heroic you say it anyway. You sit
on the iron throne and you convince your yourself and
that you're dispensing wisdom and when really you're just reminding
everyone that power comes with splash, damage and all that stuff.
And that's the burden, you know. I don't want to
(24:19):
say it's too big a burden. It's not the biggest
burden in the world, but it's one of the burdens
of this job, the blessing and the curse, the double
edged sword. That it's not like the written word. The
written word, I do believe is much worse. People spaz
out over the written word more than they do the
audio world that we live in. Uh, it's still a
problem in radio, but it's much worse in the newspapers.
(24:43):
The newspapers are the newspapers left. But in that particular
world it's much it's much worse, but still the power
of the spoken word. And you're out, you're doing your thing,
you're living your life right, and you know that thing
bounces all over the place, the thing of a jig,
and you whisper it into a microphone in la and
it doesn't stay whispering. E goes, It ricochets, It finds
(25:06):
its way into bedrooms and factories and family gatherings and
folding chairs and polite conversations with people you love and
some people you hate. And then the microphone is it's
like a megaphone, right, It just bouncing all over the place.
And every night I sit there thinking at the iron throne,
(25:29):
the bully pulpit, I'm thinking, man, I am ruling the
kingdom of the mall militia, when really I am lighting
a flare and hoping it doesn't land in someone else's backyard.
And sometimes it does. Sometimes it lands at Thanksgiving. Sometimes
it lands, you know, years later, like the conversation we're
having right now, introduced by a smile and a follow
(25:52):
up with a bot bod. But that is the cost
of saying the quiet part out loud. That is the
part you said, you said the quiet part out loud.
You don't get to choose, You don't you got You
don't get to jews who hear's it. You only get
to choose whether you say it or not. And once
(26:14):
you do, once you say it, you don't own the
words anymore. They own you, and they can come back
and be used against you at any time, not in
the court of not in the court of the mal
Ard militia, I mean just in general, just in general.
(26:34):
So there it is. We'll put the the baby to bed.
I hope you guys have a great rest of your Saturday.
Enjoy the football today. Danny g should be joining us
for the mail bag. Hooray for Hollywood, Hooray for Hollywood.
That should be tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day, so we
(26:56):
look forward to that and until next time. Osta pasta
lader skater Cela VI is that no, I can't say that. No,
huh okay, there you go, Bye bye bye, Felicia.
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 sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and Danny g Radio. A Happy Saturday to you.
It is the twentieth day of December. We have NFL
football today, two games. As you can tell, it's getting
late in the year when they roll out the Saturday
NFL games, and we have you covered on Benny versus
(00:49):
the Penny. I know you have watched the Saturday special
Green Bay and Chicago. That is the big game of
the day, well week in a nod to the Eagles
and the Washington Commanders. Clearly not that big a game
because the Commanders are not only an NFL team they
blow but the Bears Packers game. That's gonna be a
(01:11):
good game. Looking forward to watching that later today, have
the Big Malard party thing of a jig which will
be taking place at some point today in an undisclosed location.
So we have that to look forward to as we
wind down twenty twenty five. And on this podcast we
have the Great Equalizer and Game of Thrones, well, the
(01:37):
Malord spin on the Game of Thrones. We have that
for you to look forward to as we celebrate today.
Not just your normal random Saturday. It's the dot your
Eyes Day. That's right. What the hell is dot your
eyes Day? Well, it's one of those fugazy holidays every
December twentieth every year, and you know the saying dot
(02:01):
your eyes and cross your t's. Well, today is when
you're supposed to dot your eyes. It's a very special day.
And the history of the day, well, it goes back sometimes,
I guess. I think it was eighteen forty nine there
was an article written and that was the first time
(02:22):
that expression dot your eyes and you know, cross your t's.
That eighteen forty nine, how about that the earliest known
evidence of that saying. And here we are all these
years later, and there we are. I guess technically it
goes back probably to like the three hundreds or something
like that. In eighteen forty nine, the idiom became official,
(02:46):
became kosher, and it was used as an expression in
an article. And all these years later, here we are.
We still do it to this day. So make sure
to dot your eyes. Let's get right into it. More
tail from the Naked City in the Malad Militia. It
was that magical day yet again. I told you on
the Friday Podcast that I was planning on talking about
(03:10):
my experience as Santa Benny on the Friday podcast, but
that injustice, that crime that took place in Seattle, I
had to do an emergency bonus Mallard monologue on the
Seahawks Rams game. So that aside, today's the day rights.
It was the magical day, the one that sneaks up
(03:32):
on the calendar, you know, it's like a mischievous elf,
if you will. And it was circled. It was on
my phone, on my iPhone, I had the date. It's
a yearly tradition, unlike any other That's what Jim Nantz
would say. Unlike any other Hello, friends or patrons or whatever. Anyway,
I much like the swallows returning the Mission San Juan
(03:53):
Capistrano or the Turkey vultures better known locally as the Buzzards,
because hey, this is America, and flapping back from their
southern migration to roost and Hinckley Ridge, Ohio. Much like that,
this was the day, the day that the guy you're
(04:15):
listening to became someone else. I transitioned, if you will.
We headed to the undisclosed city where my wife works,
a place I will not name because mysteries deserve to
be preserved, and I will preserve the mystery I will.
(04:35):
And there I arrived, I got out of the malamobile,
and I went into the metaphorical phone booth as just
a normal man named Ben Mahler, overnight sports radio guy,
dispenser of hot takes, cold pizza, metaphors, malarisms, all that,
and then abra cadabra, woila presto poof Ta da lo,
(05:02):
and behold, I merged as Santa BENI from head to
toe right now. Of course, it wasn't actually a phone booth,
was a men's bathroom at the city yard, but nevertheless,
in my head it was like a phone booth, and
I was completely decked out head to toe in the
(05:22):
iconic red Santa Claus outfit, the very same outfit that
was popularized by Coca Cola, and is now that you're
talking about the power of advertising, how big Coca Cola
was back in the day they came up with the
red Santa Claus and now it is universally accepted as
historical fact. And this, I should note, is one of
(05:46):
my favorite events of the year, every December for many
many years. I don't even know how many years it's been.
This is my routine. It is sacred in its own
goofy way. And I'll explain this to you. I'm gonna
cross boundaries here. I'm gonna explain this to Passover, you know,
growing up celebrating Passover. Why was this night different from
(06:10):
all other nights? And the four questions for Santa Beni.
On all other nights, we do not dress in costume.
On this night, we dress from head to toe. On
all other nights, we do not climb on the back
of a fire truck. On this night, we sit on
the back of a fire truck, right on the roof,
but on the back. On all other nights, we are introverted.
(06:32):
We try to avoid awkward conversations with strangers, and we
try to avoid putting ourselves out in front of everyone.
On this night we are extroverts. On all other nights
we keep a relatively low profile. On this night, we
are very much in the spotlight. Now. We got lucky.
We did, and luck does matter in these things. The
(06:54):
weather was cool, it was not frozen. We didn't get
any rain. The fire truck did not break down, the
engine work the entire night, All of these things. All
of these things have happened in the past, usually when
optimism was running high and we didn't really have any
contingency plans. Those were running low. And what was the experience,
(07:18):
Like I'm glad you asked, It was like being Mickey
Mouse in the Main Street USA Electrical Parade. You are
not just a person anymore. You are a symbol. Kids
waved and ran towards the truck like it was powered
by pure magic. Parents smiled, old people smiled. Middle aged
(07:42):
people who rarely smile without irony they smiled too. And
we have people waving from cars bringing their dogs to
see the show, from sidewalks, from the back of a
taco shop. There were some boys in the back waving.
There were people working in a drive through weed dispensary,
(08:02):
the smoke shop, and they seem pretty happy, and yes,
that's the modern American tapestry right there. You got tacos,
you got cannabis. You got a guy on the back
of a fire truck in a Santa costume riding around
town waving. Everyone smiles when they see old Saint maler
It is involuntary. It's a it's a reflex. You don't
(08:26):
fight it, you cannot fight it. You surrender. That's it.
And we covered a lot of real estate. I was
up there for four hours on the back of the
fire truck. We went from the middle class neighborhoods of
this town, where the cars had two hundred and seventy
eight thousand miles. The dashboard looked like its own Christmas
(08:47):
tree with all the warning lights, and then we went
up to the foothills, and then we went further up
where the people had Bentley's and Maybox. It's kind of
lounging in the driveway like pampered house cats, and everything
was perfect. It's quite the juxtaposition when you go from
the working class neighborhood to the really, really wealthy. However,
(09:09):
I did notice the same smiles, the same waves, the
same wonder and that's the thing. You're that red costume.
The Santa costume the great equalizer, it really is. And
as I have been doing it again, I don't know
how long it's been, It's been many, many years. As
(09:29):
a season Santa, let's call it like that. As a
season Santa, I have the routine down like the back
of my hand. Rule number one now, rule number one,
no eating or drinking before Santa Taurus. Cannot do it.
Cannot do it. Why is that? I'll tell you why.
Because the bathroom becomes a major endeavor, it becomes a quest.
(09:54):
It's a saga. It's a thing that the great philosophers
would have written three books about. The Santa outfit is
not designed for convenience, it's not. These costumes are designed
for the spectacle in mind. There's a lot of layers
to it. And the hardest part of the job, however,
(10:14):
is climbing down from the fire truck. And this is
where the job turns into something that goes from a
festive fun thing to evil canievil daredevil status. It's kind
of like that old song Hotel California. When you put
on the Santa suit and you get to the top
(10:34):
of the fire truck, you can check out any time
you like, but you can never leave once you're up there.
I'm a pretty tall guy, right, pretty tall guy, still
got a little weight to me. So I get up there,
and you're wrapped in layer after layer after layer. You
got the boots on the size of small kayaks. I've
(10:55):
already got big feet to start, and you realize that
you're fighting the g as in gravity if you will,
and gravity has the greatest winning percentage of all time,
it's undefeated. One little misstep and you are right into
an ambulance and then to the emergency room if you're lucky,
(11:18):
if you're lucky, or go. Getting down is an act
of faith, blind faith. Now, thankfully, on this night, when
the night ended, we did not have an incident, largely
because the group of firefighters that were driving the truck around.
They're the real heroes here in more ways than one.
They and the police officers, but the firemen. They helped
(11:40):
my fat ass off the fire truck, and I had
dignity mostly intact. There's a trust fall element to it.
You expect the ground obviously unforgiving, right, and your insurance
deductible is pretty high. It's pretty high, So you got
(12:01):
that going on and then all the fair like all
fairy tales, all fairy tales, and pretty much the same
way the taking off the clothes, you know, the Iron
Man suit, Santa's black boots turned back into a crappy
shoe at midnight, just like the fairy tale, and I
changed into my street clothes. I felt like Anthony Davis,
(12:23):
and I went over to raising canes to celebrate my
community service. Because nothing says goodwill towards fellow man like
chicken fingers, French fries and Texas toast. That's the way
to do it. That is the way to do it.
And just like that, it was ov R. Just like that,
(12:43):
it was over another chapter in The Naked City, another
reminder that for just one night a year, one night
a year, I don't know what it's going to be
until the last minute, but one night a year, under
the cover of darkness and fueled by moonlight, the overnight
gas bag gets to be something else. Entirely felt a
(13:09):
little bit like alf the Illin Opiner or ferg Dog
with their avatars, and so till December twenty twenty six.
Sometime in December of twenty twenty six, when the magic
night happens yet again, and I will be back in
the Santa costume to do it all over again, back
in the Santa costume again, to spend on the back
(13:32):
in the saddle, back in the saddle. All right, turn
the page on that. I wanted to mention something that
happened somewhat recently to me here. So I have learned
many things. I try to learn something new every day.
Normally it's a word or a phrase that I really
wasn't familiar with and tried to add a little something
(13:53):
to my lexicon. Work like the devil, I get that
in there, and so I do that. And one of
the things that I've learned over the years that does
not relate to words, but is a word. It's the
vibe you get from a word, say what yeah, let
me let me explain this better. So of all the
(14:13):
things that I've learned, the power of a phrase, which
is the word but that is a body blow, body blow,
body blow, body blow. It's an amazing word, the word butt.
And we've discussed it a little bit on the radio show.
It is a verbal landmine. It is a silk pillowcase
(14:37):
covering a brick. It's a hug that ends with a
knee to your testicles. It's the polite cough before the
doctor tells you, Hey, I think we've found something interesting here.
We got we gotta take a look at. Now. Recently,
I attended a family function with what I lovingly call
(14:59):
the Old Old Guard. The Old Guard. Now, this was
not a gathering. This was a museum exhibit, a seventy
and over event. And I'm getting older, and yet I
was still the spring chicken. Okay, I'm I'm getting older,
and yet these people were all much older than I was.
(15:21):
I was the young buck. I was the reckless youth.
I was sitting at the kiddie table because I actually
had cartilage still left in my knee, at least a
little bit. And so we had some local family. I
don't have a lot of family, and I'm not really
close with this group of people, but we did have
some family fly in from Arizona, which I love to
see some more of the Older Guard, and I know,
(15:42):
maybe maybe ten people, And there were a lot of people.
I mean maybe ten people I was familiar with at
this thing. The rest of the people were just strangers
drifting through the room, like background characters in a doors song.
People are strange people are strange when you're a stranger.
(16:03):
Jim Morrison would have enjoyed the setup, and so okay.
There I was gas bag man without a cape a jag,
just a guy by day and then an audio folk
hero by night, at least in my own head, circulating
(16:23):
around the room politely. I had my good manners. I
was shaking hands, I was smiling, I was nodding. I
was handing out metaphorical conversation candy canes to people that
I Some I hadn't seen a long time. Some I
hadn't seen a really long time. And then there were
people I hadn't seen ever. And this is what you
(16:44):
do at these events. I don't normally go to these events,
but as it felt like a big deal, I needed
to be there, So I went to this particular event.
You keep it light, You avoid the big three, politics, religion,
and anything involving who do you think is gonna win
the Super Bowl? I don't need that. If I knew
I wouldn't be here, I'd be in Vegas. I'd be rich.
(17:07):
If I knew that I'd be somewhere else. Also, the
advice the former boss Don Martin gave us as we
must stay away from the third rail. Momiam, that's the
third rail. Stay away, Okay, I'll stay away. Don no
third Rael. So then I ran into one of my
dear cousins, an older woman, very sharp, kind, warm hearted woman,
(17:29):
and we were catching up. I don't see this woman
very often, and so when we see each other at
the rare and appropriate family event, we exchange life updates,
the greatest hits. Now, eventually she asked the inevitable question,
the question that you knew was coming. You knew the
question was coming, the question, so how's the radio show? Okay,
(17:57):
can you ask me again? Yes, how's the radio show?
Let me meditate over that for a few minutes. No,
so she asked me that, Now this is the moment.
This is where we get the plot twist. This is
where you originally you hear somebody to say that when
they say how's the radio show, You're like, Okay, I'm
gonna take it. Lean back, I'm gonna wait for the compliment,
(18:18):
and my ego is gonna take a little small, harmless
sip of the good times and all that stuff. And
so she said, this is the next part. She said,
I tried to listen to your show. You sounded good,
and then she dropped the guillotine. But yes, so she
(18:41):
started out by saying, I tried to listen to your show.
You sounded good, and then but was sent out the
most dangerous syllable in the English language. But she said,
I had to turn it off because you rip women's
soccer and I love women's soccer, and you took a
shot at women's soccer and I didn't appreciate that. That
was a dagger to the heart. She might as well
(19:03):
have just call me blubber guts right there. What was
wrong with your blubberduts? Shame on you, You know, as
John Snow once famously said on Game of Thrones, a
man who learned this lesson the hard way. Everything a
person says before the word but is a lie. It
(19:24):
just is, which means mathematically, I did the Matler math
in my head. And not only mathematically, but spiritually and emotionally.
My radio show did not sound good to this woman.
My cousin was offended. She was offended. The hot take
struck a nerve. The fire breathing dragon had burned down
(19:48):
the village. Well that's not ideal, that's not what you're
looking for. And so she was damaged, and she was triggered.
She was emotionally confused by everything that she heard. She
needed a safe space, preferably one with a padded room.
No microphones, no speakers, nothing like that. And now here's
the part that sticks to your ribs like a thick
(20:11):
brisket left on the smoker a little bit too long.
That monologue that she was upset about, the one where
she said, I tried to listen to your show and
then she delivered the butt. Yeah, that's a universal thing
for a lie. But at that moment, I know's there
all right? Fine, The monologue aired in twenty twenty three,
(20:32):
almost three years ago. It's almost twenty twenty six, and
so the moment is still with me. Like sticking to
your ribs like a brisket, as I said, that was
in the smoker too long, and it's like a sleeper
cell that was activated all these years later, like a
bad actor or bad tattoo missed extra point. The actual event,
(20:57):
The actual event happened in twenty seventeen, so it was
even before that. Now, the monologue she referenced was in
twenty twenty three, and that's when the US women's national
team preparing for friendlies against Russia, scrimmaged the FC Dallas
under fifteen boys academy team, bunch of teenagers, and the
(21:20):
US women's national team lost five to two to a
bunch of teenage boys. Now that, for a while was
dismissed as internet legend. I remember hearing that's not true.
You fell for a conspiracy theory. Remember our conversation yesterday
about conspiracy theories. So anyway, okay, Well it was confirmed
(21:41):
by Carly Lloyd. She said, Yep, it absolutely happened. This
was real. It wasn't Internet folklore. It wasn't somebody posting
on Reddit. It wasn't some bot account on x. This
was a tune up game that went completely off the tracks,
completely upjets. This is the sports equivalent of the Lakers
(22:02):
losing to like University high School. Not because anyone hates
the Lakers but we do, not because anyone hates education,
although some of us do, but because reality sometimes crashes
the party uninvited and double parks in the driveway, which
we all love unless we don't. And here's the thing, now,
(22:25):
I smiled, I nodded, I traded niceties with my cousin,
as I said, and then I did what professionals do
when they know they are outnumbered, when they know they've
crossed into uncomfortable territory. I got up, I took a
deep breath. I looked around the room. I did inventory
of everything, what everyone was wearing. People I don't even
(22:48):
care about this stuff, but I was doing it. That
was going around, and so that was that. And you know,
I did play along, as I said, with my cousin
and played knics. I walked away. But the moment, at
that particular moment, I was reminded, well, it was uncomfortable.
(23:10):
It was a kind of a gently painful reminder of
the nuclear torpedo. My fingers on the button, and I
control this on a nightly basis. A microphone is not
a toy. It is not a toy. It's the iron throne.
It custs both ways. It amplifies the truth and a
(23:34):
fence at the same time and in the same volume.
And so you're not supposed to say the quiet part
out about everyone knows it, everyone thinks it, but you're
not supposed to say it. And sometimes on overnight radio,
fueled by caffeine supplements, conviction and the delusion that honesty
(23:56):
is always a heroic you say it anyway. You sit
on the iron throne and you convince your yourself and
that you're dispensing wisdom and when really you're just reminding
everyone that power comes with splash, damage and all that stuff.
And that's the burden, you know. I don't want to
(24:19):
say it's too big a burden. It's not the biggest
burden in the world, but it's one of the burdens
of this job, the blessing and the curse, the double
edged sword. That it's not like the written word. The
written word, I do believe is much worse. People spaz
out over the written word more than they do the
audio world that we live in. Uh, it's still a
problem in radio, but it's much worse in the newspapers.
(24:43):
The newspapers are the newspapers left. But in that particular
world it's much it's much worse, but still the power
of the spoken word. And you're out, you're doing your thing,
you're living your life right, and you know that thing
bounces all over the place, the thing of a jig,
and you whisper it into a microphone in la and
it doesn't stay whispering. E goes, It ricochets, It finds
(25:06):
its way into bedrooms and factories and family gatherings and
folding chairs and polite conversations with people you love and
some people you hate. And then the microphone is it's
like a megaphone, right, It just bouncing all over the place.
And every night I sit there thinking at the iron throne,
(25:29):
the bully pulpit, I'm thinking, man, I am ruling the
kingdom of the mall militia, when really I am lighting
a flare and hoping it doesn't land in someone else's backyard.
And sometimes it does. Sometimes it lands at Thanksgiving. Sometimes
it lands, you know, years later, like the conversation we're
having right now, introduced by a smile and a follow
(25:52):
up with a bot bod. But that is the cost
of saying the quiet part out loud. That is the
part you said, you said the quiet part out loud.
You don't get to choose, You don't you got You
don't get to jews who hear's it. You only get
to choose whether you say it or not. And once
(26:14):
you do, once you say it, you don't own the
words anymore. They own you, and they can come back
and be used against you at any time, not in
the court of not in the court of the mal
Ard militia, I mean just in general, just in general.
(26:34):
So there it is. We'll put the the baby to bed.
I hope you guys have a great rest of your Saturday.
Enjoy the football today. Danny g should be joining us
for the mail bag. Hooray for Hollywood, Hooray for Hollywood.
That should be tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day, so we
(26:56):
look forward to that and until next time. Osta pasta
lader skater Cela VI is that no, I can't say that. No,
huh okay, there you go, Bye bye bye, Felicia.
Host
Ben Maller
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