August 29, 2025 • 31 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Friday for you! He talks: Pigeon Power, Whistle Stop, & more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kutbooms.
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 to the Clearinghouse
of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth
(00:23):
Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maler and Dany g Radio,
A Happy Friday to you. We have slid into the
twenty ninth day, the final Friday of the month of August,
and big college football weekend got underway last night and
I am looking forward to, as you probably are as well,
(00:54):
the big game tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Texas and Ohio State.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
The arch manning Camp Pain underway, and then the weekend
wraps up on Monday. Bill Belichick back in the spotlight,
North Carolina and TCUs has some good games to watch
this weekend in college football.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
But this is not about that.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
As you know the Fifth Hour podcasts, it's more than just.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
About the games.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
In fact, it's often not about the games. It's often
not about the games. But on this podcast we have
Pigeon Power and the whistle Stop. Pigeon Power and the
whistle Stop, and will begin with this. We look back
before we look ahead, we go back to Lost Wages, Nevada,
a wacky weekend of what we like to call malor
(01:45):
magic in old Viva las Vegas. Now we have said
on the Fifth Hour podcast so many times Viva las
Vegas that I believe it's practically a radio family crest.
Now the Neon de Conival and the weekend was a
reminder that Vegas is less of a city. It's actually
(02:07):
Paradise Nevada where all the hotels are. But Vegas is
the term. It's the colloquial term. Vegas is less of
a city and more of a mirage. It's got the plumbing.
It's a town built on oxygen tanks and hope and despair.
And you see a lot of people that are down
the luck. There's some people that are very wealthy and
they mix and mingle. And now before the meet and greet,
(02:30):
we will get to that. We'd like to alert all
the podcast affiliates down the line.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We will get to the malord meet and greet.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Before the handshakes the selfies, the inevitable guy who wants
to take his shirt off and show you the obscure
sports tattoo he got when he was drunk in college
because he lost a bet. We had a radio show
to do. The real reason for the trip was the
meet and greet. We decided to get there a little
early the Circus Act, before the Circus Act, if you will,
(02:59):
under the Big Time up broadcasting from Las Vegas Thursday
into Friday on the overnight, one night only, one night only,
a fast turnaround, white.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Knuckle style racist.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Now, me and the wife packed up the Malowmobile and
we headed east from southern California. I'm at the point
of my life where I have done the drive so
many times. It's like reading a music sheet. Like I
don't even need to read the music sheet, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You just know the music.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
So out of LA you get through the traffic in
Los Angeles, you get out, you gotta go through his Spare,
you go up a hill, you go through Hysperia and
Apple Valley is out that way, and then you go
to Barstow. They've got a famous Del Taco which is
a fast food restaurant. They started in Barstow, they have
a special menu. You keep going, keep going. There's some
(03:52):
outlet stores in Barstow. You keep going, you get out.
There's there's a little stop on the way to Baker
where they have Eddie World, And there's a couple of restaurants,
Peggy SU's Diner in your mo and so you can
stop at Eddie's Diner, get some gas, good bathrooms, and
(04:13):
some overpriced candy.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Get back in the car. Keep going, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
You get to Baker, they've got the Mad Greek Restaurant
and a bunch of fast food places and the eternal
thermometer stabbing into the desert sky. Now eventually you cross
the crossover. Now, on our way in to Vegas, we
went through Death Valley, which is kind of near Baker.
(04:38):
One hundred and seventeen degrees on the thermometer on the car,
one hundred and seventeen, one hundred and seventeen, So keep drawing.
It's about another hour outside of Baker. You get to
the state line, prim which is very depressing. It used
to be the bread basket, the appetizer to the entree.
Now technically it's still there. Mostly a ghost town, mostly
(05:03):
a ghost town. Now the famous hotels, Buffalo Bills, and
Whiskey Pets are gone. There's a gas station with a
donut shop and Starbucks, and there's.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
One hotel left.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I went in there to put some bets down later
on on my way back to la and it was very,
very depressing. There was this great mall which is pretty
much all gone. Anyway, The last time I did a
show in Vegas was pre pandemic, and I went to
what I call the Old iHeart Building. Now that doesn't
(05:37):
mean much to you. That doesn't mean much to you
because you don't know where the Old iHeart Building is.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And I'm gonna try to paint a picture for you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
So the Old iHeart Building, where I broadcast many shows
from in Vegas, was a warehouse across the interstate that
looked like a place where accountants go to retire and
just you know, just generic. You don't really pay an attention,
you don't look twice, there's nothing special about it. The
(06:06):
setting outside of the building were homeless encampments, flickering street lights,
the scent of broken dreams in the air.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Such a juxtaposition because you have this dump and then
you can see off in the distance, the strip with
all the neon and all the lights and all that stuff.
But the iHeart Building, the old iHeart Building was that
scene in old Westerns where the outlaw rides into a
ghost town and there's just a tumbleweed, which also is,
by the way, what it's like now in prim Nevada.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So anyway, that was the neighborhood where the old iHeart
Building was. It was surrounded by tens cardboard cities, the
forgotten souls and the people that are hanging out on
the hard scrabble streets. They were all there. All of
them were there. And it was a place where doing
radio in a city like Las Vegas, well this is Vegas.
This is an entertainment capital. It's wonderful. But doing radio
(07:03):
at that building felt less glamorous than if you were
cleaning toilets at a truck stop on the Jersey Turnpike.
It just you could not feel less glamorous. And so
when the Fox bosses, my bosses at Fox Sports Radio
sent me a new address, I braced for another warehouse.
I said, well, this is not the old place. This
(07:23):
is probably just going to be as bad. It'll just
be a different location instead, much to my amazement and
very rarely at this point in.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
My life, I am amazed by anything.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I witnessed the taj Mahal, now, not the actual taj
Mahal obviously not that. However, in terms of comparing what
I had been in the last building to this.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And they're sitting right there in the heart of Fremont
Street in downtown Vegas. To me, that's the real Vegas.
The neon reflected off the glass of the radio station.
There was a white castle next door, not a water burger,
a white castle. You know, those little square grease bombs
that taste like nostalgia and regret once you've eaten them,
(08:12):
and you feel a white castle when you eat it,
and then you feel it for the next three days
because you can't just.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Eat one or two.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You got to eat like a whole pack of them.
And that's how they do it. And there was a
police station right next to the iHeart Fremont Street studios,
which is very important, very important for obvious Fremont reasons,
which you really do appreciate. If you've been to Vegas
and been to Fremont Street, you appreciate it. Once you've
seen what's out and about the critters, the creatures, the
(08:43):
goblins that are called street performers on Fremont Street at
around two in the morning, it's not pretty. Fremont after
midnight is less sirkd through Solet and more sirk through Sketchy.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The legendary DJ. She's a DJ in Vegas. Dj Ice.
She let me in.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
She was our contact at the radio station, and she's
kind of like the bouncer at the door of Oz.
And they even put my Ben Mallor show logo up
in the remote studio in Vegas. How cool is that?
My logo the equivalent of someone hanging your kid's macaroni
art at the louver.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
It felt like that. But there I was.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I was surrounded by all these different monitors. They had
my logo on. I was like, wow, this is kind
of cool.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
This is neat, you know. I got that vibe.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
They don't do that at the main studio I'm at
in La So the show ran smoothly. There were a
few bumps, but smooth. Loraina stopped by. My wife was
with me during the broadcast. She wanted to come hang out.
They had gatorade and some other drinks that they provided.
They provided me with snacks and drinks. How cool is that?
I didn't eat the snatches. I don't eat at night.
I do that fugazy fasting. But they did provide me
(09:51):
some drinks, and so there I was, and it's like Vegas.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Wanted to remind me of the balance. Right after the show.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I'd done the show, I turned the mic off, unplugged
my headphones, put everything.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Away, and I walk out.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
By this time, you know, the show ends on the
West Coast at three in the morning, so it's about
three thirty in the morning, and you're literally on Freemont Street.
So I walk out, and I've got my wife Ice.
There was another gentleman there, and I walk out and
immediately saw a homeless man, barefoot, no shirt, chasing a
(10:29):
pigeon with the focus of a defensive back trying to
slow down Tyreek Hill back in his Kansas City days.
Looking this person for pigeon power. The whole bow was
looking for pigeon power. Now, unfortunately, I wish this was
a happy story. I don't know whether or not he
caught thee the pigeon, but what I do know is
(10:51):
he wasn't trying to keep it as a pet.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
If you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
I think he was looking for a little late night snack,
late night munchie with the pigeon. But Vegas is always
both sides of the coin. It's the glitz inside, and
that was just pure desperation outside. So then I went
back to the hotel, which was just down Fremont Street.
(11:17):
More neon buzzs, a lot of cigarettes, smoke. I never
see people smoking cigarettes in Los Angeles is banned.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Everywhere you go to Vegas.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Everyone's smoke, which is fine if you don't have to
do a talk show, and it messes with your throat
if you do.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So the end of the overnight show, I'd gotten a
message from r P one and the Twin Cities guy
named Corey. He said, Hey, you gotta say hello to
the boys on Kfan. They're literally right across from you,
he said. One of the guys from the Power Trip
crew was across the street over at circum So I
was debating and I was like, listen, it's the middle
(11:53):
of the night here. I just got done doing four
hours of talk radio.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I drove all day. I'm tired, I got no sleep.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I should just go and kind of chill out a
little bit, go to bed, and then we had Friday
to kind of futs around, and then the big event
on Saturday. And then I was like, you know what,
this guy Corey wants me to go see these guys.
Some other listeners started to say you should go see
the Power Trip guys, and boom, I'd said, you know what,
the hell Minnesota Morning Radio Royalty.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So I walked across Fremont Street into the.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Circa the Sportsbook Cathedral And if you've never been to Circuit,
it's an adults only hotel.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
They actually card you.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
You have to give your idea to get in there,
which means they're the riff raft does not get in there, right,
the riff raft does not get in there. And this
is a glowing temple of excess for sports and it's
just magical and wonderful.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
They've got an amazing pool.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
And I'm sure I'll talk a lot more about Circus
we go forward.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Chris Hawkkey aka of a Hawk, was the person that
was broadcasting from Vegas and he works on the Vikings
radio broadcast and whatnot, but he was the star there.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
He treated me like an equal, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You know, I'm just the nocturnal creature, the critter at
night who works in the hours when most people are
drooling on their pillows. And they were very polite, they
very kind. The guys on the show said they listened.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They said they actually.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Enjoyed the show. I actually wanted to believe them, and
I think I did. I think I did believe that
they listened. Meat Sauce was cool and Corey back in Minnesota.
They do the show on the internet, so I was
on camera. They put me on the air for about
about ten minutes, give or take about ten minutes, regardless,
though even those ten minutes popped online louder than anything
(13:44):
I've posted in many, many months.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
That's the power trip that must be by their name.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The power trip like plugging your old guitar into someone
else's amp and then suddenly you're Hendrix, right, you know,
it's an ego trip. Sure now, I floated out of there,
out of the circa, could have moon walked back across
Fremont and all that Fremont Street, and then I was
overwhelmed with kindness. Minnesota people are just different. I learned
(14:09):
that when I went to Minnesota. They say nice Minnesota nice.
It's it isn't just a trait. It maybe it's like
a survival mechanism when you live in a place where
it's just Siberia, the winter lasts longer than a lot
of the Hollywood marriages take place. They were very kind, welcoming, generous.
(14:29):
It flattered me, It humbled me a bit. It reminded
me of why you attend these these things, why you
want to meet other people in the business, and you
want to hang out and meet listeners whatever. So Vegas
was the backdrop, but this was this was that day
was about connections. I love talking to people that are
love radio, that are radio lifers. I enjoy hanging out
(14:52):
with listeners. Some of you have become my friends over
the years. And those moments that you didn't plan but
end up replaying your head like highlights. That really is
the jackpot. And that's one of those moments. That would
be one of those moments. And now to the main event,
the main event. So there is a bit of nervousness.
(15:17):
Nervousness if the man could speak to this, there always is.
I've pointed out, we promote, we promote, we promote, but
we're not getting bankrolled by corporate. A lot of the
other shows go out, they have budgets, they have sponsors.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
This is.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Not that where the Overnight Show. They don't allow us
any of that. They don't promote the show out at
these things, they don't book it. For years, I've asked management.
I said, listen, we can go out, we can do
a tour and go around the country and it could
be sponsored.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And they said, well, we're.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Trying, but it never works out. So in this case,
you think you're just going to a bar in Las Vegas, right,
just a bar. We've been promoting it for a couple
of weeks. You think you're just going to sit with
some people who listen to you drone on and on
and talk into the microphone on the radio in the
(16:11):
dead of the night.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
And then you realize this is actually a referendum.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It is a referendum on whether or not you actually matter,
whether or not the many many hours that we do
not talk about but spend preparing the malor monologues and
the other nonsense that we do on the show, and
then you go into the studio somewhere yammering and hemming
and hahn about sports. But it's really about life, and
(16:41):
it's about goofy stuff and your moonlighting about nonsense. And
you have to cut through the static, right, you gotta
cut through the static enough that a group of mostly
strangers will leave their homes and spend their money. I'm
not paying, and these people to be here and stand
(17:02):
in the Nevada heat just to look at your fat
ass and the eye and say, hey, I listen, and
that that's what that's about. This was the twenty twenty
five Las Vegas Mallard Meat and greet, and I will
tell you it felt like a campaign whistle stop more
than a fan gathering. My wife calls it that. She says,
(17:22):
this is the whistle stop tour. It's a political tour.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And she's right.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Like these things, they do have the texture of politics,
because much like politics, you never know if you're running
unopposed or if the crowd will simply not turn out,
which is very embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And I've been lucky.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
The smallest crowd we got was in Wisconsin, but that
was really because it was last minute. It was an appleton,
it was at a Mexican restaurant. But other than that,
it's mostly been it's mostly been great. There's always an
anxiety that there'll be an empty room and there's the dread.
You see all the chairs and the tables are unoccupied,
(18:04):
and you're like, oh my god, I am such a loser.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And that's the thing. Radio, as you know, is a
very lonely medium.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
It's one of the great things about radio is it's
a one on one thing, even though you're not in
the same room.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
But radio is a lonely medium.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
You talk in a dark room into a microphone, you
throw your words into the abyss, into the a.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Void, and then you're on a wing and a prayer.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
You're praying that someone on the other side catches those
words and that they like them enough to keep listening
and maybe that too. And then when they do, and
then when they actually show up in the flesh, it's hallelujah.
It is career validation unlike any kind of ratings or
podcast download numbers can.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Ever ever provide.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And they show up, and they come from all over,
from far out in the wild, blue yonder, everywhere in between,
near and far. The cast of characters in the Malad Militia,
there's no audience quite like this. There's no group of
people that can match it. Take Carnival parade, and each
(19:14):
more distinct than the last. Some and I'm gonna forget
some names. I'm telling you right now. I'm trying to
remember this as much as I can off the top
of my head. I did write a few notes down,
I was very busy. I didn't have time. And so
Queen Roxanne, we'll start with the Queen flew in from Denver,
got to meet Coop again and met Loraina for the
(19:36):
first time. So Queen Roxanne flew in from Denver, a
reunion almost ten years in the making, so happy. She's
got a really good job and was just glowing with
goodness and big smile on Queen Roxanne's face. It was
great to see her. She had the right Bronco head on.
She had the old school eighties style Brocco cap, which
(19:56):
is the only acceptable Bronco cap. So that was great,
really cool seeing Queen Roxanne. Surfer Todd, the comedian by
trade Wink Wink, a fashion adventurer by preference. He arrived
with his wife Deborah in the standard technic color garb
that made Fremont Street look underdressed.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I just made a look underdressed.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Jay Dot drove all the way, lives north of Salt
Lake City, lives in Ogden, Utah.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Drove all the way from Ogden down to Vegas.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
No small feat from a man Jay Dot, And especially
when the thermometer is staging a rebellion against the laws
of mother nature, It's like, oh, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (20:41):
No Stradinis, I did not know.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
No Stradenas was going to be their a profit of
all things absurd flew in from Seattle with his vegan
wife in tow because no matter how eccentric the character,
someone at home is keeping them honest about kale. Now know,
Studinis did point out that while his wife is wonderful
(21:04):
and lovely and all that, she is of course not
perfect because she does not eat meat. Now, tiger Man,
that was a surprise. Tiger Man he arrived. I love
this guy. Good dude, Hey, it's tiger reminds me of
me when I was a little younger. Tiger Man arrived
all the way from Missouri Warri's now living, and he
(21:25):
might as well have had stripes of Lsu purple practically
painted across his face.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
There certainly across his spirit.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
There was a young guy, I don't remember his name,
guy from French Lick, Indiana, famous town, Larry Bird, the
hick from French Lick, guy from French Lick, Indiana, who
was in Vegas. The town of course, as you mentioned,
no for Larry Bird and not much else. He intercepted
me when I first arrived and the proceedings were just beginning,
and he was waving his phone like a campaign aid,
(21:56):
insisting someone very important was on the line.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Well, this must be like.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
The President of the United States, or it's Elon Musk,
or it's that guy from Facebook, the red haired guy,
a Zuckerberg. And so he puts me on a zoom,
not a zoom, but like a Facebook call, and there
he is. Can't close the deal, Neil the legend, can't
(22:22):
close the deal. Neil who could not make the event.
He was on FaceTime, could not make the event, but
it was important enough for him to force I think
it was his cousin. I think, I'm not sure, maybe
not some relative, very nice gentleman I forget his name, though,
but encouraged him to go to the event and be
(22:43):
part of it. He wanted to be part of it,
so that was great. We had Kathy and Madison, who
was not there, but she did a virtual concert while
it was going on, and so that's how it went,
you know, with Vegas magic in its purest, most uncut form.
Big Lou came up from LB because he's on number two.
Somebody actually asked me, is that the Big Lou from
(23:04):
the commercial?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I said, yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That's the Big Lou from the commercials, unless it's not
Big Lou. Larger than life as always Supermarcus Steve. He
was there with his lovely wife and the legend behind
the world's most famous Tierra Massou. You had Dante, a
Georgia transplant now living in Las Vegas, and young guy.
He shook my hand. He was very excited to meet me,
(23:28):
which made me feel good. He whispered about his dream.
He told me he's got big plans. He's working at
a gas station right now, but he told me he
says his plans from Georgia. And when you're from Georgia
and you love a certain restaurant, you're in Vegas, they
don't have that restaurant. You got to bring that restaurant
to Vegas. And he said, listen, I want to open.
Dante told me, I want to open the first waffle
(23:48):
house in Sin City. I told him that's not a dream,
I said, Dante, that's essentially a civic duty. And Las
Vegas does not need another show. It needs hash brown scattered,
smothered and covered at three in the morning. That's what
it needs. There was Big Balls Bob, the Great Big
(24:09):
Balls Bob Breakout Star of our Karaoke contest, which did
turn a small stage.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
He did.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
He turned this little small stage into his own personal
Madison Square Garden really just like the Hollywood Bowl, just
nailing it. And karaoke did get a little heated. There
were some temperatures that were raised. It was heated in
the way only karaoke can. Right your half delusional, half competitive.
(24:38):
There's the haze of booze, the alcohol softening the edges
a little bit. So that was going on the Boston
Cabby great character, he told me. He said, a little
slow in Vegas with the tourism, but I'm making a
lot of money on kickbacks. He's directing people to houses
(24:59):
of ill reproach or you know you know what I mean.
Uh yeah, you know the rub and tug places that
Robert Krafti likes and some other places that get contraband
David from Vegas David from Vegas. He resurfaced like an
old sitcom character popping back up for a cameo. It
was great to see him and bonded with Snooker, who's
(25:20):
become a caller now and his wife. Snooker a Vietnam
vett who's lived lived his life lifetime in the Air Force,
A real great character from Chicago. But he's a Yankee fan,
loud and proud. And of course there was Slug and
his partner in crime, the logistical geniuses that were able
to secure us the venue, the stakeout Barn Grill near UNLV,
(25:44):
a joint with the kind of sticky floors and stiff
drinks that make you feel like you're you're in the
right place, like you stumbled into the set of every
good Vegas movie. That isn't the Hangover.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It wasn't one of those all.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Perfect places in the strip. It was on the strip.
It was it was different as a near a college,
and it was cool and Slug was able to book
the place. It was booked for two hours. The event
was from three o'clock till five. We ended up staying.
I think by the time I got back to the
hotel was seven. It was nearly four hours. And that's
(26:22):
how it goes. Do you think you're going to shake
some hands, pose for some pictures, say some thank you
and all that, and instead these things In this case,
it became like a church.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Not the kind with the pews.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
And the stained glass and the you know, the Bibles
all over, but the kind where the congregation is a
bunch of strangers who found you.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Late at night. You know, people lonely.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Maybe they were in a bad place in their life,
they went through a breakup, they lost a relative, maybe
they were sick, battling some creeping crud or something worse,
and it just needed a voice and background noise, and
for some reason they settled on you, and they kept
going and.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Then just like that, it was over. That's all she wrote.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
We spilled out into the one hundred and twelve degree
Nevada heat on that late late Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It was one hundred degrees at one in the morning
in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
It's the kind of heat that makes you feel like
you've opened up the oven door and forgotten, forgotten to
pull back.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You know, it's like, what are we doing?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Everyone scattered into the neon afternoon back. Some people went
to the airport to catch flights. People were going back
to the Strip. Some people were going out to Fremont Street,
Quiet Corners of tim Buck Too, somewhere out in Springfield
or Sheboygan or Rancho Cucamonga.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
And that was great.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I mean everyone from you know, we said most of
the name of the giant fan I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I don't know if I mentioned him, he his wife
or there it was. It was just it was pretty cool.
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
And if I did not say your name, I'm a schmuck.
There was a big construction.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Dude, big mogul guy there. It makes a ton of
money's loaded. Good for him. And it wasn't just an event.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
It was proof of life, proof that the words that
we just throw out there do not evaporate into the ether.
Proof that the tribe known as the Malard Militia is real.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Baby.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
And I'm gonna tell you this, a Malard meeting. Maybe
you'll never go to one. You probably won't. Most people
don't go to these things. We don't do them that often.
But a Malard meeting, especially in Vegas, it's not about Vegas.
It's about it's not about it's about radio. It's about community.
It's about a weird family of strangers, characters that you
(28:51):
grow to love. It's about finding that somewhere out there
in that endless haze of static or bad way I
FI where you're listening on the stream, somebody heard you, right,
and so I do want to thank you. If you attended,
I want to thank you. If you thought about attending
but didn't attend, I want to thank you if you're
planning on attending a future event. We plan on being
(29:16):
back in Vegas sometime in August of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
As for Boston and Ohio, Mike in.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
New Hampshire and the Leprechaun have both been very kind.
We're efforting some dates on that, so we'll let you know. Ohio,
we want to do Ohio.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
We need a.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Venue in the Cincinnati area, and it's a bit of
a race against time. We don't want to go to
Cincinnati when the weather's really nasty. Don't want to do
that obviously, So if we don't get it done soon here,
we're going to have to push it back to the
spring of twenty twenty six. Now, I did have a
listener full disclosure, I think I mentioned this in a
previous podcast or radio show, but it all is a big,
(29:56):
big fog. So I had a listener that reached out
and offered a place, a mom and pop business that
I thought would have been perfect for the Malor meet
and greet, and we were going back and forth, back
and forth, and then they ghosted me. Now it's possible
that they're out of town. It's possible that you know,
their email got hacked or something like that. But if
(30:17):
you know, you know who you are, reach reach out
to me. Because it's been it's been a minute and
I'm thinking this, you changed your mind, or your your dad,
who kind of runs the place or owns the place,
change their mind. Anyway, I'm not going to go unless
I can get a place to host us and do
(30:39):
this right.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I want to do it right. The Ohio event is
going to be big.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I don't want to do half ass, and I want
to meet at some random restaurant and some weird part of.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Town, you know, an odd hour, and I don't want
any part of that. So we are effitting that and
the Boston thing.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And there isn't a southern California meet and greet that
we're planning on doing as well. So if you're interested
in helping us out again, we have no budget.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
This is all grassroots. As of now, I.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Will be the only one that goes to Ohio, unless,
for example, somebody wants to step up and cover some
of the costs for our travel.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I will go out of pocket.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
But the Rain and Coop I do not believe we'll
be We'll be doing that anyway.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
We'll have new podcasts. Dani will join me at some
point this weekend. We'll have a new pot on Saturday
and Sunday and have a wonderful, glorious arrest of your
Friday and later skater asta pasta.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, that's how it goes. Did I do it right? Danny?
Now you're nodding your head. I see you over there
behind the glass. You're no in your head.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Now, got a murder?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I gotta go.
Kutbooms.
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 to the Clearinghouse
of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth
(00:23):
Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maler and Dany g Radio,
A Happy Friday to you. We have slid into the
twenty ninth day, the final Friday of the month of August,
and big college football weekend got underway last night and
I am looking forward to, as you probably are as well,
(00:54):
the big game tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Texas and Ohio State.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
The arch manning Camp Pain underway, and then the weekend
wraps up on Monday. Bill Belichick back in the spotlight,
North Carolina and TCUs has some good games to watch
this weekend in college football.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
But this is not about that.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
As you know the Fifth Hour podcasts, it's more than just.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
About the games.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
In fact, it's often not about the games. It's often
not about the games. But on this podcast we have
Pigeon Power and the whistle Stop. Pigeon Power and the
whistle Stop, and will begin with this. We look back
before we look ahead, we go back to Lost Wages, Nevada,
a wacky weekend of what we like to call malor
(01:45):
magic in old Viva las Vegas. Now we have said
on the Fifth Hour podcast so many times Viva las
Vegas that I believe it's practically a radio family crest.
Now the Neon de Conival and the weekend was a
reminder that Vegas is less of a city. It's actually
(02:07):
Paradise Nevada where all the hotels are. But Vegas is
the term. It's the colloquial term. Vegas is less of
a city and more of a mirage. It's got the plumbing.
It's a town built on oxygen tanks and hope and despair.
And you see a lot of people that are down
the luck. There's some people that are very wealthy and
they mix and mingle. And now before the meet and greet,
(02:30):
we will get to that. We'd like to alert all
the podcast affiliates down the line.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We will get to the malord meet and greet.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Before the handshakes the selfies, the inevitable guy who wants
to take his shirt off and show you the obscure
sports tattoo he got when he was drunk in college
because he lost a bet. We had a radio show
to do. The real reason for the trip was the
meet and greet. We decided to get there a little
early the Circus Act, before the Circus Act, if you will,
(02:59):
under the Big Time up broadcasting from Las Vegas Thursday
into Friday on the overnight, one night only, one night only,
a fast turnaround, white.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Knuckle style racist.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Now, me and the wife packed up the Malowmobile and
we headed east from southern California. I'm at the point
of my life where I have done the drive so
many times. It's like reading a music sheet. Like I
don't even need to read the music sheet, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You just know the music.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
So out of LA you get through the traffic in
Los Angeles, you get out, you gotta go through his Spare,
you go up a hill, you go through Hysperia and
Apple Valley is out that way, and then you go
to Barstow. They've got a famous Del Taco which is
a fast food restaurant. They started in Barstow, they have
a special menu. You keep going, keep going. There's some
(03:52):
outlet stores in Barstow. You keep going, you get out.
There's there's a little stop on the way to Baker
where they have Eddie World, And there's a couple of restaurants,
Peggy SU's Diner in your mo and so you can
stop at Eddie's Diner, get some gas, good bathrooms, and
(04:13):
some overpriced candy.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Get back in the car. Keep going, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
You get to Baker, they've got the Mad Greek Restaurant
and a bunch of fast food places and the eternal
thermometer stabbing into the desert sky. Now eventually you cross
the crossover. Now, on our way in to Vegas, we
went through Death Valley, which is kind of near Baker.
(04:38):
One hundred and seventeen degrees on the thermometer on the car,
one hundred and seventeen, one hundred and seventeen, So keep drawing.
It's about another hour outside of Baker. You get to
the state line, prim which is very depressing. It used
to be the bread basket, the appetizer to the entree.
Now technically it's still there. Mostly a ghost town, mostly
(05:03):
a ghost town. Now the famous hotels, Buffalo Bills, and
Whiskey Pets are gone. There's a gas station with a
donut shop and Starbucks, and there's.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
One hotel left.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I went in there to put some bets down later
on on my way back to la and it was very,
very depressing. There was this great mall which is pretty
much all gone. Anyway, The last time I did a
show in Vegas was pre pandemic, and I went to
what I call the Old iHeart Building. Now that doesn't
(05:37):
mean much to you. That doesn't mean much to you
because you don't know where the Old iHeart Building is.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And I'm gonna try to paint a picture for you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
So the Old iHeart Building, where I broadcast many shows
from in Vegas, was a warehouse across the interstate that
looked like a place where accountants go to retire and
just you know, just generic. You don't really pay an attention,
you don't look twice, there's nothing special about it. The
(06:06):
setting outside of the building were homeless encampments, flickering street lights,
the scent of broken dreams in the air.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Such a juxtaposition because you have this dump and then
you can see off in the distance, the strip with
all the neon and all the lights and all that stuff.
But the iHeart Building, the old iHeart Building was that
scene in old Westerns where the outlaw rides into a
ghost town and there's just a tumbleweed, which also is,
by the way, what it's like now in prim Nevada.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So anyway, that was the neighborhood where the old iHeart
Building was. It was surrounded by tens cardboard cities, the
forgotten souls and the people that are hanging out on
the hard scrabble streets. They were all there. All of
them were there. And it was a place where doing
radio in a city like Las Vegas, well this is Vegas.
This is an entertainment capital. It's wonderful. But doing radio
(07:03):
at that building felt less glamorous than if you were
cleaning toilets at a truck stop on the Jersey Turnpike.
It just you could not feel less glamorous. And so
when the Fox bosses, my bosses at Fox Sports Radio
sent me a new address, I braced for another warehouse.
I said, well, this is not the old place. This
(07:23):
is probably just going to be as bad. It'll just
be a different location instead, much to my amazement and
very rarely at this point in.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
My life, I am amazed by anything.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I witnessed the taj Mahal, now, not the actual taj
Mahal obviously not that. However, in terms of comparing what
I had been in the last building to this.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And they're sitting right there in the heart of Fremont
Street in downtown Vegas. To me, that's the real Vegas.
The neon reflected off the glass of the radio station.
There was a white castle next door, not a water burger,
a white castle. You know, those little square grease bombs
that taste like nostalgia and regret once you've eaten them,
(08:12):
and you feel a white castle when you eat it,
and then you feel it for the next three days
because you can't just.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Eat one or two.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You got to eat like a whole pack of them.
And that's how they do it. And there was a
police station right next to the iHeart Fremont Street studios,
which is very important, very important for obvious Fremont reasons,
which you really do appreciate. If you've been to Vegas
and been to Fremont Street, you appreciate it. Once you've
seen what's out and about the critters, the creatures, the
(08:43):
goblins that are called street performers on Fremont Street at
around two in the morning, it's not pretty. Fremont after
midnight is less sirkd through Solet and more sirk through Sketchy.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The legendary DJ. She's a DJ in Vegas. Dj Ice.
She let me in.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
She was our contact at the radio station, and she's
kind of like the bouncer at the door of Oz.
And they even put my Ben Mallor show logo up
in the remote studio in Vegas. How cool is that?
My logo the equivalent of someone hanging your kid's macaroni
art at the louver.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
It felt like that. But there I was.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I was surrounded by all these different monitors. They had
my logo on. I was like, wow, this is kind
of cool.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
This is neat, you know. I got that vibe.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
They don't do that at the main studio I'm at
in La So the show ran smoothly. There were a
few bumps, but smooth. Loraina stopped by. My wife was
with me during the broadcast. She wanted to come hang out.
They had gatorade and some other drinks that they provided.
They provided me with snacks and drinks. How cool is that?
I didn't eat the snatches. I don't eat at night.
I do that fugazy fasting. But they did provide me
(09:51):
some drinks, and so there I was, and it's like Vegas.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Wanted to remind me of the balance. Right after the show.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I'd done the show, I turned the mic off, unplugged
my headphones, put everything.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Away, and I walk out.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
By this time, you know, the show ends on the
West Coast at three in the morning, so it's about
three thirty in the morning, and you're literally on Freemont Street.
So I walk out, and I've got my wife Ice.
There was another gentleman there, and I walk out and
immediately saw a homeless man, barefoot, no shirt, chasing a
(10:29):
pigeon with the focus of a defensive back trying to
slow down Tyreek Hill back in his Kansas City days.
Looking this person for pigeon power. The whole bow was
looking for pigeon power. Now, unfortunately, I wish this was
a happy story. I don't know whether or not he
caught thee the pigeon, but what I do know is
(10:51):
he wasn't trying to keep it as a pet.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
If you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
I think he was looking for a little late night snack,
late night munchie with the pigeon. But Vegas is always
both sides of the coin. It's the glitz inside, and
that was just pure desperation outside. So then I went
back to the hotel, which was just down Fremont Street.
(11:17):
More neon buzzs, a lot of cigarettes, smoke. I never
see people smoking cigarettes in Los Angeles is banned.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Everywhere you go to Vegas.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Everyone's smoke, which is fine if you don't have to
do a talk show, and it messes with your throat
if you do.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
So the end of the overnight show, I'd gotten a
message from r P one and the Twin Cities guy
named Corey. He said, Hey, you gotta say hello to
the boys on Kfan. They're literally right across from you,
he said. One of the guys from the Power Trip
crew was across the street over at circum So I
was debating and I was like, listen, it's the middle
(11:53):
of the night here. I just got done doing four
hours of talk radio.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I drove all day. I'm tired, I got no sleep.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I should just go and kind of chill out a
little bit, go to bed, and then we had Friday
to kind of futs around, and then the big event
on Saturday. And then I was like, you know what,
this guy Corey wants me to go see these guys.
Some other listeners started to say you should go see
the Power Trip guys, and boom, I'd said, you know what,
the hell Minnesota Morning Radio Royalty.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So I walked across Fremont Street into the.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Circa the Sportsbook Cathedral And if you've never been to Circuit,
it's an adults only hotel.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
They actually card you.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
You have to give your idea to get in there,
which means they're the riff raft does not get in there, right,
the riff raft does not get in there. And this
is a glowing temple of excess for sports and it's
just magical and wonderful.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
They've got an amazing pool.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
And I'm sure I'll talk a lot more about Circus
we go forward.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Chris Hawkkey aka of a Hawk, was the person that
was broadcasting from Vegas and he works on the Vikings
radio broadcast and whatnot, but he was the star there.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
He treated me like an equal, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You know, I'm just the nocturnal creature, the critter at
night who works in the hours when most people are
drooling on their pillows. And they were very polite, they
very kind. The guys on the show said they listened.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
They said they actually.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Enjoyed the show. I actually wanted to believe them, and
I think I did. I think I did believe that
they listened. Meat Sauce was cool and Corey back in Minnesota.
They do the show on the internet, so I was
on camera. They put me on the air for about
about ten minutes, give or take about ten minutes, regardless,
though even those ten minutes popped online louder than anything
(13:44):
I've posted in many, many months.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
That's the power trip that must be by their name.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The power trip like plugging your old guitar into someone
else's amp and then suddenly you're Hendrix, right, you know,
it's an ego trip. Sure now, I floated out of there,
out of the circa, could have moon walked back across
Fremont and all that Fremont Street, and then I was
overwhelmed with kindness. Minnesota people are just different. I learned
(14:09):
that when I went to Minnesota. They say nice Minnesota nice.
It's it isn't just a trait. It maybe it's like
a survival mechanism when you live in a place where
it's just Siberia, the winter lasts longer than a lot
of the Hollywood marriages take place. They were very kind, welcoming, generous.
(14:29):
It flattered me, It humbled me a bit. It reminded
me of why you attend these these things, why you
want to meet other people in the business, and you
want to hang out and meet listeners whatever. So Vegas
was the backdrop, but this was this was that day
was about connections. I love talking to people that are
love radio, that are radio lifers. I enjoy hanging out
(14:52):
with listeners. Some of you have become my friends over
the years. And those moments that you didn't plan but
end up replaying your head like highlights. That really is
the jackpot. And that's one of those moments. That would
be one of those moments. And now to the main event,
the main event. So there is a bit of nervousness.
(15:17):
Nervousness if the man could speak to this, there always is.
I've pointed out, we promote, we promote, we promote, but
we're not getting bankrolled by corporate. A lot of the
other shows go out, they have budgets, they have sponsors.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
This is.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Not that where the Overnight Show. They don't allow us
any of that. They don't promote the show out at
these things, they don't book it. For years, I've asked management.
I said, listen, we can go out, we can do
a tour and go around the country and it could
be sponsored.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And they said, well, we're.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Trying, but it never works out. So in this case,
you think you're just going to a bar in Las Vegas, right,
just a bar. We've been promoting it for a couple
of weeks. You think you're just going to sit with
some people who listen to you drone on and on
and talk into the microphone on the radio in the
(16:11):
dead of the night.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
And then you realize this is actually a referendum.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It is a referendum on whether or not you actually matter,
whether or not the many many hours that we do
not talk about but spend preparing the malor monologues and
the other nonsense that we do on the show, and
then you go into the studio somewhere yammering and hemming
and hahn about sports. But it's really about life, and
(16:41):
it's about goofy stuff and your moonlighting about nonsense. And
you have to cut through the static, right, you gotta
cut through the static enough that a group of mostly
strangers will leave their homes and spend their money. I'm
not paying, and these people to be here and stand
(17:02):
in the Nevada heat just to look at your fat
ass and the eye and say, hey, I listen, and
that that's what that's about. This was the twenty twenty
five Las Vegas Mallard Meat and greet, and I will
tell you it felt like a campaign whistle stop more
than a fan gathering. My wife calls it that. She says,
(17:22):
this is the whistle stop tour. It's a political tour.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And she's right.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Like these things, they do have the texture of politics,
because much like politics, you never know if you're running
unopposed or if the crowd will simply not turn out,
which is very embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And I've been lucky.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
The smallest crowd we got was in Wisconsin, but that
was really because it was last minute. It was an appleton,
it was at a Mexican restaurant. But other than that,
it's mostly been it's mostly been great. There's always an
anxiety that there'll be an empty room and there's the dread.
You see all the chairs and the tables are unoccupied,
(18:04):
and you're like, oh my god, I am such a loser.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
And that's the thing. Radio, as you know, is a
very lonely medium.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
It's one of the great things about radio is it's
a one on one thing, even though you're not in
the same room.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
But radio is a lonely medium.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
You talk in a dark room into a microphone, you
throw your words into the abyss, into the a.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Void, and then you're on a wing and a prayer.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
You're praying that someone on the other side catches those
words and that they like them enough to keep listening
and maybe that too. And then when they do, and
then when they actually show up in the flesh, it's hallelujah.
It is career validation unlike any kind of ratings or
podcast download numbers can.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Ever ever provide.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And they show up, and they come from all over,
from far out in the wild, blue yonder, everywhere in between,
near and far. The cast of characters in the Malad Militia,
there's no audience quite like this. There's no group of
people that can match it. Take Carnival parade, and each
(19:14):
more distinct than the last. Some and I'm gonna forget
some names. I'm telling you right now. I'm trying to
remember this as much as I can off the top
of my head. I did write a few notes down,
I was very busy. I didn't have time. And so
Queen Roxanne, we'll start with the Queen flew in from Denver,
got to meet Coop again and met Loraina for the
(19:36):
first time. So Queen Roxanne flew in from Denver, a
reunion almost ten years in the making, so happy. She's
got a really good job and was just glowing with
goodness and big smile on Queen Roxanne's face. It was
great to see her. She had the right Bronco head on.
She had the old school eighties style Brocco cap, which
(19:56):
is the only acceptable Bronco cap. So that was great,
really cool seeing Queen Roxanne. Surfer Todd, the comedian by
trade Wink Wink, a fashion adventurer by preference. He arrived
with his wife Deborah in the standard technic color garb
that made Fremont Street look underdressed.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I just made a look underdressed.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Jay Dot drove all the way, lives north of Salt
Lake City, lives in Ogden, Utah.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Drove all the way from Ogden down to Vegas.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
No small feat from a man Jay Dot, And especially
when the thermometer is staging a rebellion against the laws
of mother nature, It's like, oh, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (20:41):
No Stradinis, I did not know.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
No Stradenas was going to be their a profit of
all things absurd flew in from Seattle with his vegan
wife in tow because no matter how eccentric the character,
someone at home is keeping them honest about kale. Now know,
Studinis did point out that while his wife is wonderful
(21:04):
and lovely and all that, she is of course not
perfect because she does not eat meat. Now, tiger Man,
that was a surprise. Tiger Man he arrived. I love
this guy. Good dude, Hey, it's tiger reminds me of
me when I was a little younger. Tiger Man arrived
all the way from Missouri Warri's now living, and he
(21:25):
might as well have had stripes of Lsu purple practically
painted across his face.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
There certainly across his spirit.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
There was a young guy, I don't remember his name,
guy from French Lick, Indiana, famous town, Larry Bird, the
hick from French Lick, guy from French Lick, Indiana, who
was in Vegas. The town of course, as you mentioned,
no for Larry Bird and not much else. He intercepted
me when I first arrived and the proceedings were just beginning,
and he was waving his phone like a campaign aid,
(21:56):
insisting someone very important was on the line.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Well, this must be like.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
The President of the United States, or it's Elon Musk,
or it's that guy from Facebook, the red haired guy,
a Zuckerberg. And so he puts me on a zoom,
not a zoom, but like a Facebook call, and there
he is. Can't close the deal, Neil the legend, can't
(22:22):
close the deal. Neil who could not make the event.
He was on FaceTime, could not make the event, but
it was important enough for him to force I think
it was his cousin. I think, I'm not sure, maybe
not some relative, very nice gentleman I forget his name, though,
but encouraged him to go to the event and be
(22:43):
part of it. He wanted to be part of it,
so that was great. We had Kathy and Madison, who
was not there, but she did a virtual concert while
it was going on, and so that's how it went,
you know, with Vegas magic in its purest, most uncut form.
Big Lou came up from LB because he's on number two.
Somebody actually asked me, is that the Big Lou from
(23:04):
the commercial?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I said, yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That's the Big Lou from the commercials, unless it's not
Big Lou. Larger than life as always Supermarcus Steve. He
was there with his lovely wife and the legend behind
the world's most famous Tierra Massou. You had Dante, a
Georgia transplant now living in Las Vegas, and young guy.
He shook my hand. He was very excited to meet me,
(23:28):
which made me feel good. He whispered about his dream.
He told me he's got big plans. He's working at
a gas station right now, but he told me he
says his plans from Georgia. And when you're from Georgia
and you love a certain restaurant, you're in Vegas, they
don't have that restaurant. You got to bring that restaurant
to Vegas. And he said, listen, I want to open.
Dante told me, I want to open the first waffle
(23:48):
house in Sin City. I told him that's not a dream,
I said, Dante, that's essentially a civic duty. And Las
Vegas does not need another show. It needs hash brown scattered,
smothered and covered at three in the morning. That's what
it needs. There was Big Balls Bob, the Great Big
(24:09):
Balls Bob Breakout Star of our Karaoke contest, which did
turn a small stage.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
He did.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
He turned this little small stage into his own personal
Madison Square Garden really just like the Hollywood Bowl, just
nailing it. And karaoke did get a little heated. There
were some temperatures that were raised. It was heated in
the way only karaoke can. Right your half delusional, half competitive.
(24:38):
There's the haze of booze, the alcohol softening the edges
a little bit. So that was going on the Boston
Cabby great character, he told me. He said, a little
slow in Vegas with the tourism, but I'm making a
lot of money on kickbacks. He's directing people to houses
(24:59):
of ill reproach or you know you know what I mean.
Uh yeah, you know the rub and tug places that
Robert Krafti likes and some other places that get contraband
David from Vegas David from Vegas. He resurfaced like an
old sitcom character popping back up for a cameo. It
was great to see him and bonded with Snooker, who's
(25:20):
become a caller now and his wife. Snooker a Vietnam
vett who's lived lived his life lifetime in the Air Force,
A real great character from Chicago. But he's a Yankee fan,
loud and proud. And of course there was Slug and
his partner in crime, the logistical geniuses that were able
to secure us the venue, the stakeout Barn Grill near UNLV,
(25:44):
a joint with the kind of sticky floors and stiff
drinks that make you feel like you're you're in the
right place, like you stumbled into the set of every
good Vegas movie. That isn't the Hangover.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It wasn't one of those all.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Perfect places in the strip. It was on the strip.
It was it was different as a near a college,
and it was cool and Slug was able to book
the place. It was booked for two hours. The event
was from three o'clock till five. We ended up staying.
I think by the time I got back to the
hotel was seven. It was nearly four hours. And that's
(26:22):
how it goes. Do you think you're going to shake
some hands, pose for some pictures, say some thank you
and all that, and instead these things In this case,
it became like a church.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Not the kind with the pews.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
And the stained glass and the you know, the Bibles
all over, but the kind where the congregation is a
bunch of strangers who found you.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Late at night. You know, people lonely.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Maybe they were in a bad place in their life,
they went through a breakup, they lost a relative, maybe
they were sick, battling some creeping crud or something worse,
and it just needed a voice and background noise, and
for some reason they settled on you, and they kept
going and.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Then just like that, it was over. That's all she wrote.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
We spilled out into the one hundred and twelve degree
Nevada heat on that late late Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It was one hundred degrees at one in the morning
in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
It's the kind of heat that makes you feel like
you've opened up the oven door and forgotten, forgotten to
pull back.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You know, it's like, what are we doing?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Everyone scattered into the neon afternoon back. Some people went
to the airport to catch flights. People were going back
to the Strip. Some people were going out to Fremont Street,
Quiet Corners of tim Buck Too, somewhere out in Springfield
or Sheboygan or Rancho Cucamonga.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
And that was great.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I mean everyone from you know, we said most of
the name of the giant fan I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I don't know if I mentioned him, he his wife
or there it was. It was just it was pretty cool.
It was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
And if I did not say your name, I'm a schmuck.
There was a big construction.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Dude, big mogul guy there. It makes a ton of
money's loaded. Good for him. And it wasn't just an event.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
It was proof of life, proof that the words that
we just throw out there do not evaporate into the ether.
Proof that the tribe known as the Malard Militia is real.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Baby.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
And I'm gonna tell you this, a Malard meeting. Maybe
you'll never go to one. You probably won't. Most people
don't go to these things. We don't do them that often.
But a Malard meeting, especially in Vegas, it's not about Vegas.
It's about it's not about it's about radio. It's about community.
It's about a weird family of strangers, characters that you
(28:51):
grow to love. It's about finding that somewhere out there
in that endless haze of static or bad way I
FI where you're listening on the stream, somebody heard you, right,
and so I do want to thank you. If you attended,
I want to thank you. If you thought about attending
but didn't attend, I want to thank you if you're
planning on attending a future event. We plan on being
(29:16):
back in Vegas sometime in August of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
As for Boston and Ohio, Mike in.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
New Hampshire and the Leprechaun have both been very kind.
We're efforting some dates on that, so we'll let you know. Ohio,
we want to do Ohio.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
We need a.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Venue in the Cincinnati area, and it's a bit of
a race against time. We don't want to go to
Cincinnati when the weather's really nasty. Don't want to do
that obviously, So if we don't get it done soon here,
we're going to have to push it back to the
spring of twenty twenty six. Now, I did have a
listener full disclosure, I think I mentioned this in a
previous podcast or radio show, but it all is a big,
(29:56):
big fog. So I had a listener that reached out
and offered a place, a mom and pop business that
I thought would have been perfect for the Malor meet
and greet, and we were going back and forth, back
and forth, and then they ghosted me. Now it's possible
that they're out of town. It's possible that you know,
their email got hacked or something like that. But if
(30:17):
you know, you know who you are, reach reach out
to me. Because it's been it's been a minute and
I'm thinking this, you changed your mind, or your your dad,
who kind of runs the place or owns the place,
change their mind. Anyway, I'm not going to go unless
I can get a place to host us and do
(30:39):
this right.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
I want to do it right. The Ohio event is
going to be big.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I don't want to do half ass, and I want
to meet at some random restaurant and some weird part of.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Town, you know, an odd hour, and I don't want
any part of that. So we are effitting that and
the Boston thing.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And there isn't a southern California meet and greet that
we're planning on doing as well. So if you're interested
in helping us out again, we have no budget.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
This is all grassroots. As of now, I.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Will be the only one that goes to Ohio, unless,
for example, somebody wants to step up and cover some
of the costs for our travel.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I will go out of pocket.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
But the Rain and Coop I do not believe we'll
be We'll be doing that anyway.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
We'll have new podcasts. Dani will join me at some
point this weekend. We'll have a new pot on Saturday
and Sunday and have a wonderful, glorious arrest of your
Friday and later skater asta pasta.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, that's how it goes. Did I do it right? Danny?
Now you're nodding your head. I see you over there
behind the glass. You're no in your head.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Now, got a murder?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I gotta go.
Host
Ben Maller
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