June 6, 2026 • 35 mins
Ben turns a family trip to an amusement park with nephew Jude into a full-blown game of Mortal Kombat! Along the way, there's elementary-school pizza courtesy of "Doris," lemonade with no lemons, and an Apple Watch-fueled adventure. Ben transforms into an artificially flavored Robin Hood, taking down Bernie Madoff at the Hedge Fund game, before embarking on a scavenger hunt to save the 2026 NFL Book'em. Add in Hollaring James breathing, wheezing, and farting simultaneously, and you've got peak Benfoolery. Subscribe, like, and enjoy!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kabooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's the clearinghouse of hot takes. Break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now in.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler
and you.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We are reunited in the audio sweatshop.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Here. It is Saturday, the sixth day of June. The
content does not stop. It is National Yo Yo Day today,
which is apparently a thing. And when I was a kid,
we did have the yo yo, and that's because we
didn't have the video games. We had our Cade video games,
(01:01):
we didn't have iPhones, so we had.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
The yo yo. And I was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I was pretty good by the way the yoyo originated,
they say in five hundred BC in China. And I
would argue that my ability to walk the dog was
on par with anyone in my era. Back in the
day rock the baby. I was really good rocking the baby,
so it's National Yo Yo Day today. I wonder how
(01:28):
many people under the age of like thirty five, no
what a yo yo is. There is actually a National
yo Yo Museum which is in Chico, California.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So I'm gonna go out to Chico.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
You can see the National Yo Yo Museum, which I'm
told has the world's largest yo yo, which weighs two
hundred and fifty six pounds and is displayed at the
National Yo Yo Museum, assuming that is still open, and
the yo yo is in the Hall of Fame, the
National Toy Hall of Fame, which is in Rochester, New York,
(02:04):
home of Felexus, America's favorite drag queen caller, and way
back in nineteen ninety nine, the yo yo a Hall
of Famer.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Very exciting.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
On this podcast, we have Mortal Combat, Not what You
Think and Butterflies. We begin though this being the Saturday podcast,
it's all about the life of Malar. It used to
be about the life of Danny g but he quit
the podcast, so it's about the life of Malar.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
People hear that, they hear that and as well the
life of Malar and you assume it's some kind of
rock and roll existence if you don't listen to the podcast.
If you're new to the podcast, welcome. We're here every Friday.
This is Saturday, and then tomorrow we'll have one for
the mailbag on Sunday. And so if you listen to
(02:50):
the radio show, you think, well, it must be some
kind of rock and roll type situation, you know, sex, drugs,
backstage passes, and I'm here to disappoint you.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I hate to disappoint you.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
My life is mostly the industrial complex of sports takes,
chicken fingers and cuddling with my beloved English bulldog named Moxie,
who spends most of her waking hours farting and looking
disappointed in what I'm doing. And frankly, that's a much
(03:23):
better life anyway. So last weekend we'll taking the hot
top time machine. Last weekend was a celebration my nephew,
little fella named Jude, like Hey Jude, the old Beatles
song turned seven years old. Now seven is the perfect age.
And if you've heard me blabbing over the years, you
(03:43):
know that I've always believed that somewhere between seven and
twelve years old is the golden era of human existence.
Everything is exciting and new, and it's stuff you're actually
gonna remember. You know, you have memories from before them,
you know they're kind of vague and in the back
of your head.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
You get to about seven eight.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think nine is really where it kicks in for
most people. But seven there's stuff I remember from that age,
and every day feels important. A trip to go get
ice cream feels like a national holiday. You're not worried
about your cholesterol, you don't care about taxes, you're not
worried about the parking politicians, whether your left knee makes
(04:26):
noises every time you stand up, or your right knee,
or your elbows barking. And then as you get older,
every experience becomes a comparison.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
To how happy you were when you were seven.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Like my little guy here, Jude, my nephew, was asked
by us, like what do you want for your birthday
from your uncle and your aunt? And turns out it
was not a toy. Shockingly, it was not a video game.
It was not mountains of stuff. He wanted to spend
(05:01):
time with the family at an amusement park. Now we
did get gifts and all that, you want to go
to the amusement park, we could not attend his birthday party.
Not that we don't love going to seven year old
birthday parties, but we couldn't make it. So He's like,
let's come to the amusement park. I want to spend
time with the family. And how sweet is that?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Now?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Meanwhile, adults, us grown ups, spend thousands of dollars on
therapy and all kinds of crap to try to recreate
the feeling that this little fella is going through right
now now. The chosen destination was Knots Berry Farm in
southern California and Buena Park, not Disneyland. Not Disneyland, We're
(05:43):
talking about Knots. Think of Disneyland like the Beatles Knots
if you're.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Not from southern California.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Knots is a really good garage band that still has
loyal fans, except they're getting older. And Disneyland and Knots
are seven miles apart geographically if you put the maps
app on your phone, seven miles. However, they might as
well be about seven galaxies apart in terms of cultural impact,
(06:12):
if you.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
So before we went, we did any what any responsible
adult would do, reconnaissance opposition research. I had not been
an Osbury farm and sometime we approached this trip the
same way Sean McVay would prepare for a playoff game.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
We wanted numbers.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
We looked at the analytics, the cost of parking, how
much is food, potential, financial land mines that we need
to know about, And so we did our research, looked
at the prices, questioned whether or not it would have
just been better to buy the aisle of toys at
the toy shop for the kid, and swallowed my tongue
(06:51):
almost The tickets, the food, the parking, everything looked like
it had been priced by someone who had recently suffered
some kind of traumatic head injury. Now, fortunately, my sister
in law had season passes to nots she goes all
the time, and so as a result, they allow you
to get some discount tickets for.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Friends to come. Which was not a small victory. This
was a huge victory.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So then I looked at the parking, and then I
looked again, and I wait, wait a minute, forty dollars
forty dollars the park to leave your car sitting motionless
on asphalt, Like what are you the Bellagio in Vegas?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Like that's Vegas price? Forty dollars the park. Are you
kidding me?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Oh? You Dodger Stadium parking lots have become the greatest
scam in America. And if you really want to make
a lot of money and not have much liability, open
up a parking lot near a stadium amusement park. This
happened to be the actual parking lot at the amusement park.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
What a hustle.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
At least when you buy a steak, which is also
often a ripoff, somebody has to cook it. They have
to cook a side dish often. And parking is literally
paying money so your vehicle can take a cat nap.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And so my wife then reached out to her aunt
Teresa there who was already planning on joining the gaggle
at Knots Berry Farm, and she offered free parking.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
She has a pass and she had parking on there.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And just like that, forty dollars saved the ant, becoming
the MVP before we even entered the gates. It's those
little small victories. So then my wife discovered the Knots
Premium Dining Plan, which I didn't even know was a thing.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
So forty five dollars which is a lot, a little
more than parking, and what does that get you?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Gets you?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
According to the website, one meal every ninety minutes, one
drink every fifteen minutes soft drink, Coca Cola products. The
moment I heard that, something awakened inside me. All right,
So I'm like, ohkay, So I get a meal every
ninety minutes at select venues in knots. I can get
(09:20):
a drink every fifteen minutes. I'm not really interested in
roller coasters anymore. I don't fit in the good ones
and the small ones. I don't want to go on
that I do fit in. I wasn't interested in the
entertainment options. I wasn't even interested in celebrating the birthday.
Not that I don't like birthdays. I just I was like, fine,
I had found my mission, my game, if you will,
(09:44):
my purpose for this day, the dining plan, and I
were now engaged in Mortal Kombat. This is a spin
off of the Mortal Kombat. You know this the Mortal
Kombat that is the adult vers not the arcade version
and not Spurry Farm. Thought they were gonna pull a fast.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
One on me.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Oh you're not gonna You're not gonna eat that much food.
You're not gonna get your money's worth on this. You
know we're gonna say this forty five dollars thing. You'll
eat a couple of meals, You'll be busy, You're not
gonna pay attention.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
They were wrong, they were very wrong. They had accidentally
created a competition. And I'm a competitor, all right.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I've got the fighting spirit and I was going to
beat the system. I immediately deployed advanced technology in order
to take down not Sperry Farm.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
What would that be? My Apple Watch? Now?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Unlike the cheating assholes, there are no rules against the
Apple Watch. No one at security when I came through
the metal detectors to enter not Sperry Farm asked me
about my Apple Watch.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
It is perfectly legal.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It is not contraband like the buzzer that certain members
of the astros.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It is believed.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
So I remember the deal was every ninety minutes I
get a new meal. So I set my timer on
my trusty Apple Watch. Every ninety minutes it buzzed. That
was a direct line in my stomach. Time to eat
gummy now not unlike a casino slot machine telling a
(11:23):
degenerate gambler to keep pulling the lever.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
No, no, no, this was no gambling. It was acquiring pizza
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
So the watch became my personal trainer, an important tool
to beat the man. Except instead of counting steps, I
counted opportunities to consume food.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I also got a lot of steps. Every alert felt important.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
It's like congratulations, you have unlocked a higher level and
another meal on this game spin off of Mortal Kombat.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And I wasn't writing attractions. I was harvesting value.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I was enjoying getting one that you getting something over
the man.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And meanwhile, the food itself, well, let me describe the food.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
The pizza tasted exactly like I remember at elementary school
in the cafeteria. You know that pizza get in the cafeteria.
In my case, it was from like nineteen eighty seven.
And I'm not telling you he was similar. I'm telling
you exactly the same as as nineteen eighty seven cafeteria,
elementary school pizza. Somewhere there's a lunch lady named Doris
(12:31):
who is smiling if she's still alive, like, ah, that's
my pizza pretzel, very proud of itself. And I would
be too for as much as they charged for the pretzel.
The popcorn, which is one of the cheapest foods to make,
was covered in butter and smiling at a cost of
nine dollars for popcorn. The lemonade, which I'm happy to
(12:55):
report no fruit was harmed in the making of the lemonade.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It appeared to be based on.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
The taste, assembled in a laboratory somewhere, no actual fruit
participated in its creation. Knots has this blueberry drink, which
it was okay, but it tasted to me like it
was a chemistry experiment. I'm not judging unless I am.
I was more focused on scoring points. I was worried
(13:21):
about scoring points.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
That was my mission.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
By the end of the day, let's go to the
stat line, let's go to the Kompu box.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Stats not bad. I started out with a.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Barbecue sandwich which was on a scale of one to
ten minus three.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
That was nineteen dollars and a bag of chips.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I had a I mentioned the pizza combo, which is
now I paid nineteen dollars for this.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Not a full pizza.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
It was one slice of nineteen eighty seven cafeteria pizza,
as Doris would approve, two breadsticks and that's it. Not
a full pizza, just one slice, two bread six That
was nineteen dollars, which is I believe a felony. The
pretzel was ten dollars. That's why it was smiling mentioned
the popcorn nine dollars. Now, the beverages were five fifty each,
(14:16):
and that's very important if you're keeping score as you're
listening here, five fifty per drink. And I had not one,
not two, not three, not four, not five, not six,
not seven, not eight, not nine. Actually I did have nine,
nine beverages at five dollars and fifty cents, So I
could have had more.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I could have had more. Now, keep in mind these
were not all for me.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
They were not all for me that I distributed to
the group. Think of me as a robin Hood, if
you will, very similar to robin Hood, and so I
would get the drinks, and if I didn't need one,
I would.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Hook up a family member.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Think about like Robinhood, if Robinhood specialized in artificially flavored beverages.
The final tally, let's go to the scoreboard right now,
and the scoreboard reads one hundred and sixty five dollars
and fifty cents worth of food based on the inflation
of the pricing at kno Sbury Farm.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's food and drink all in. I spent forty five
dollars on.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
The food pass, which means, if my malord math is correct,
I made a profit of sixty one dollars and fifty cents,
which is a return on investment of roughly one hundred
and thirty six percent. And Warren Buffett doesn't put those
numbers up. Nobody, even Bernie Madoff, didn't put those kind
of numbers up for one glorious day, not.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
A radio blow hard, none on this day. I was
a hedge fund manager.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
The entire experience fascinated me because amusement parks have perfected
this unique economic model. They charge you to get in,
like the ticket is. It's not free to get in,
that's discounted. That gets in, and then the real games
begin because once you're inside, you become a captive audience.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It's similar to what.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
They've done in professional sports and college sports. You suddenly
start making decisions you would never make anywhere else. Who
in their right mind would be like, let me get
a small lemonade for five dollars and fifty cents that
it has no lemon in it?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Sure? Why not?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
How about a nineteen dollars slice of nineteen eighty seven
cafeteria pizza made by Doris? Why not a fifty dollars
stuff Boysenberry who says, no, make it make sense now?
Outside the gates, these prices would trigger some kind of
congressional hearing. Inside the gates, everyone just kind of nods,
(16:58):
keeps on walking. Okay, I'll get that ten dollar pretzel.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Now. I did wander into the Knots gift.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Shop by mistake, and I.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Am not making this up.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I saw what appeared to be a tiny stuffed berry.
It was kind of a thing of grapes or boison berries.
I didn't even know what it was. It was purple,
and it was about the size of your hand.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
They were charging fifty.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Bucks fifty The thing was not alive, that it was
not breathing, It didn't do any tricks, It was not
trained by a professional. It was a stuffed berry. Fifty dollars.
I expected it to help come home and take out
the trash and do the dishes and clean up a
little bit. And the stuff berry looked very arrogant, like
(17:47):
it knew that somebody was eventually going to buy it,
and it just had to wait. Some cute little girl
was going to go in there with no concept of money,
and she would use her cute little girl skills the
skullduggery on her daddy or her uncle or her mom or.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Whoever her aunt to.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Get that stuffed animal, and that dad or whoever would
buy that for.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
His little baby. So you know that happened. It happens
all the time. That's why they do it.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That's the brilliance of amusement park pricing. Everything is overpriced,
and it somehow people seem to walk around very happy.
They leave with smiles. Maybe that's because the real product
is not the food or the rides or the fifty
dollars stuffed animals, it's the memories. And if that's true,
(18:42):
my little guy, my nephew Jude, got exactly what he wanted.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
He spent the entire day with family.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
The entire day with family, Nobody was staring at phones
at least eighty percent of the time, nobody.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Was worried about work.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Everyone was laughing and for a few hours, actually it
was a long day.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Adults got to feel like they were seven years old again.
Right now.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
As for me, I left with a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Not because of the rides. I didn't.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I went on a feel, but not because of the
birthday thing, not because of the memories Nana.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Although I did take some photos.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
That's why we had the old word thing that we
did yesterday, which was cheese, Say cheese when you take
a photo, because we handed the phone to people and
they were like, hey, all right, I'm gonna take a photo.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Say cheese. So anyway, I left not.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
With this sense of accomplishment, because somewhere deep inside my
neurotic brain, I was convinced I.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Had beaten the system that.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Knots very farm thought they were gonna pull the fast
one on me. They wanted my money, and I took
their dining plan. I squeezed every frickin penny, every nickel
out of it, and I walked away feeling like.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I had won the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
MVP Park most likely made millions of dollars that weekend.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yet in my head, I was the hero. I was
the victor. And that's really.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Often what adulthood is like, right, convincing yourself that you've
won tiny, meaningless battles while your Apple watch reminds you
it's time for another slice of pizza and a ten
dollars pretzel and all that. All right, I did want
to mention, before you know we're moving on here on
(20:33):
the podcast, I did want to mention that the big event,
other than Ferk Dog having his account blocked, the other
big event would be the butterflies.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That happened this week on the show. So it's time
to look back.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
As mentioned in a previous episode, last weekend, we talked
about what was going to happen. We were supposed to
have this on Monday into Tuesday, and then the la
Rams traded for Miles Garrett, so that left everything up.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, so listen, time flies when you're having.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Fun, or when you're getting older and all that stuff,
or when you're spending way too much time looking for
a plastic lottery hopper. That just chunks of your life
disappear without explanation.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So the NFL book them as you know, returned.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Although it was supposed to happen as I said, Monday
and Tuesday, it happened Tuesday and Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It returned to the Ben Malor.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Show, and the most shocking part wasn't the game itself,
which is great.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It wasn't the callers.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
It wasn't even the possibility of NFL players ending up
in handcuffs from New England to Seattle. It was realizing
the last time we played this ridiculous game was twenty
twenty two, four years ago, back when the Wokesters in
society canceled the fun. You can't have any fun? What's
(21:52):
wrong with you? Where did the time go? Nobody knows.
One minute you're talking about bringing back an old radio
bit someday, and the next minute you're squinting at the
calendar wondering how the hell it's already twenty twenty six.
The world changed, right, The NFL changed sports radio. That's
pretty much the same. Some of the callers have changed.
(22:14):
That is definitely different the people that call the show.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Some are the same.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
For example, hollering James appears to be operating on the
exact same software update that he's been using since the
Reagan administration, and thank goodness for that now. This year's
edition to the NFL BOOKAM was historic because it featured
something revolutionary. Wink Wink the hopper, Hop on, Hop off
(22:43):
the hopper, the first ever NFL book I'm done on
the Ben Mally radio show conducted with complete draft lottery integrity.
No funny business, no backroom deals, no hanging chads.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
If you're old, you know what that is, no allegations
of kre option.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
As the last bastion of truth in sports radio, we
take these matters very seriously. We follow the Superman blueprint
faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,
able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. And
although these days, of course I'd settle for getting out
of bed without making those weird noises. The hopper was
(23:24):
essential because we normally do this right after years pass.
We'd do this the NFL book and right after the
super Bowl, and so we'd have a draft and we'd
have the order and all that stuff. You could pick
whoever you wanted. The hopper, though, was the secret sauce
this week, the crown jewel. Now I'm going to take
you behind the microphone here. I did not talk about
this on the radio show. The only problem with the hopper,
(23:48):
hop on, hop off the hopper was.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
We couldn't find it. Nobody knew where it was. Now
we knew we had it. We had used it in
years past.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
For parties to play bing go and whatnot, and at
some point it vanished into a black hole. Now I
asked my wife if she knew where the hopper was,
and she said she thought she did.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And whenever in my life, whenever.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Somebody says they think they know where something is, that's genuinely.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Code almost all the time for good luck pal.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So what followed was a scavenger hunt, a treasure hunt,
a game of Where's Waldough? Except Waldough was a medium
sized plastic lottery machine, a hopper that you spin.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And the balls come out.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So we searched through closets, the garage, storage areas, places
where forgotten old Christmas decorations and Hanukat decorations go to die. Now, eventually,
after what felt like a long excavation we were doing searching.
We were like searching for dinosaurs, if you will, we
(24:59):
found it, buried the farthest corner of a very dark closet,
behind random boxes of junk that should.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Go right to the landfill.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And it was a hellllelujah, helllelujah, momut. The hopper had
been rediscovered, and it feels so good. Indiana Jones never
looked happier finding the arc of the Covenant than we
did finding the Hopper. I should say I did so
without the Hopper. The NFL book them is just people
(25:30):
picking names, and that's fine. We did that for a
long time with the Hopper. Now you've got theater, you've
got drama, you've got suspense, chaos, the possibility of outrage,
which is really what this is all about. Like, people
love the NFL Book, em I am told based on
(25:50):
listener feedback, they love it because it combines three of
humanity's favorite things, hope, chaos, and wild conspiracy theory. The
game itself is completely ridiculous, which might explain why the
p ones can't get enough of it and got very
upset when we'd stopped doing it for a couple of years.
(26:10):
As those who were locked in were on pins and needles,
there were literally butterflies in their stomachs floating around their stomachs,
and those of you that ladybugs had some lady blug
ladybugs floating around as well. So every selection that was
made carried a ripple of excitement. Each spin of the
(26:31):
Mallard Hopper felt like the world's least important lottery drawing.
Yet you couldn't tune out and somehow that made it
even better. The last time we played the NFL book
them back in the day, my old radio partner, my
longtime comrade, Eddie Garcia was part of the festivities. Since then,
(26:52):
let's just say that he's been excommunicated from the Church
of the Ben Malor Show. We'll leave it there to
avoid pissing off the cor being counters who made that decision.
So doing Malor maath, which is often performed without a calculator,
often involving the back of a napkin and a pen
(27:12):
and just chicken scratch and occasionally without adult supervision, the
setup was rather straightforward.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
So there's thirty two teams in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
There are four participants, eight teams each, easy, pasy, simple,
except it wasn't. Since Eddie was decommissioned. You had me,
Ben Coop and Loraina. We didn't have a person in
the fourth chair, so we needed somebody else and we
(27:44):
were one chair.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Short of a full deca chairs.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So instead of solving the problem normally, we turned this
into a bigger thing of a jig. We went to improv.
We chose improv and that's usually our solution for everything.
So introducing the guest picker. That's right, the guest picker.
What what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
The guest picker? Let me explain, I mean, let me explain.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
The guest picker here for you. In case you're like
I don't know what the I don't know what the
guest picker is, I will explain it to you.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
So the guest picker.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Every hour, every single hour, a different caller.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Would come on, right, not American pickers. This is guest pickers.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
So every hour, a different member of the Mallet militia
occupied the legendary edy chair and represented the people. It's
all about the people, right, Democracy has never been more dangerous. Now,
first up was hollering James that yeah, that's right. That
that hollering James was the first guy out, and James
(28:53):
remains one of the great audio experiences in broadcasting. I'm
so lucky that James found Now. He still talks about
that Mallard meet and greet at the Mermaid from several
years back as if it were Woodstock or the moon
landing or UFOs being announced to society, right, and so
(29:14):
listening to James hollering James is always an adventure because
you're you're never You're never entirely sure what's coming. You
know what I mean, You're never entirely sure what's coming next.
There was a story about Kirby Puckett from nineteen eighty
seven that was probably in there a tangent about Tammy
and Montana, a snore, a medical emergency. At one point
(29:39):
he sounded like he was simultaneously breathing, wheezing, and farting.
And I don't know if that's medically possible.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Nevertheless, James found a way. He's an innovator. Our two
we had Manuel in Guardina. Now, I've known Manuel as
a radio friend since my local LA radio days in
the nineteen nineties. That is not a typo the nineteen nineties.
The man has survived more sports radio battles than most
military historians have studied. He's part of the mal Or militia.
(30:13):
He's part of Jim Rome's jungle. He's basically Switzerland. Manuel
and Guardina with the phone line, veteran caller, professional talk
radio survivor. Was great to have Manuel and Guardina. Then
an hour three came Andrew in Boston. Terrific energy, terrific enthusiasm, passion, Unfortunately,
he had apparently just woken up. His allergies had organized
(30:38):
a hostile takeover of his bodily functions. The poor guy
was fighting mucus, flem gravity and fatigue and he powered through.
And that's commitment or stubbornness. The line between the two
are often very blurry. And finally, an hour four we
brought in Marcel in Brooklyn, the Goat, a multi time
(31:02):
caller of the Year, the Bambino, the Babe Ruth of
overnight sports radio. Marcel has somehow built a legendary radio
career around food picks, television recommendations and saying things with
absolute confidence whether they're right or not. He's feuded with
Blind Scott, battled Mike the Loser con as he calls
(31:25):
Mike the Leprechaun. He's tangled with the legendary Mike in
New Hampshire. He's given us the classic drop Pascal see
a com He's basically the Forrest Gump of the Ben
Maler Show. Whenever something memorable happens, Marcel is somehow nearby.
Now because of the Hopper, everything remained completely random. There
(31:47):
were no accusations that were that were verified. There were
some losers saying he was rigged. Trust me, there was
no favoritism.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
There was no rigging. It was decided by the machine.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Now I ended up with the Lrims, the Chargers, the Cowboys,
the Giants, the Bills, the Ravens, the Dolphins, and the Jets,
which means I either have a chance to win this
thing or I'm holding the sports radio equivalent of a
losing lottery ticket.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Only time will tell.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Now, if you want to see the other participants picks,
you can go to the Facebook page at Ben Mahler
Show and Instagram at Ben Mahler on Fox. That's Ben
Maler Show on Facebook, Ben Maller on Fox on the gram.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Now comes the waiting.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
And let's be very clear here, nobody on our show
wants NFL players getting arrested. I want to be very
clear on that. We don't want anyone to get arrested.
That's not the point.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
The point is the game itself is so absurd.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
How absurd is it that we hope people mock it
because nobody gets to visit the Gray Bar Hotel. You
can ridicule us, laugh at us, laugh at the game.
The fact that it's pointless is the point. It's exactly
why it's entertaining.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And so for the.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Next roughly forty five days or so, NFL teams have
downtime before training camp begins in late July, and historically speaking,
that is when some players make some very poor decisions
they'd like to get back. And the scoring system is
rather simple. It's on the Facebook and Instagram page. For
(33:28):
those of you that can't read or don't want to
go ober in there look.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Because you're too lazy. A misdemeanor arrest is one point
one point. Felony arrest is three points.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
If that felony arrest leads to a suspension or a
release which means you're fired, or a commissioner's natty list,
you get five extra points. Now, coaches are big alcoholics
and they do a lot of things to get themselves
in trouble. So coach gets arrested, that's two points. Front
office executive gets arrested. Your GM goes out on a
(33:59):
bench and does a line of coke and gets the arrested.
That's four points. It's fantasy football for the police blotter
is what it is. And at the moment, the callers
hold an early lead. We were just beginning this thanks
to issues involving players connected to the Green Bay Packers
and the forty nine ers. However, it is very early
(34:23):
in the game, very early in the game. A lot
can happen between now and training camp, and that's what
makes the NFL book them special. It's pointless, it's ridiculous,
it's unnecessary, it's probably indefensible, and yet somehow it's one
of the more entertaining things we've ever done, which, now
(34:46):
that I think about it, might also be the perfect
description of sports radio itself. On that note, we will
get out. We are going to have the mail bag
for you tomorrow. Will Pepper in some fun with that.
So we look forward to chatting you with you on
the Sunday mail bag. I have a great rest of
(35:07):
your Saturday. You know the drill, and we'll catch you
next time. And again, just to quote the great Dick
and Dayton, Bye bye, bye bye population
Kabooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's the clearinghouse of hot takes. Break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now in.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler
and you.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
We are reunited in the audio sweatshop.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Here. It is Saturday, the sixth day of June. The
content does not stop. It is National Yo Yo Day today,
which is apparently a thing. And when I was a kid,
we did have the yo yo, and that's because we
didn't have the video games. We had our Cade video games,
(01:01):
we didn't have iPhones, so we had.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
The yo yo. And I was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I was pretty good by the way the yoyo originated,
they say in five hundred BC in China. And I
would argue that my ability to walk the dog was
on par with anyone in my era. Back in the
day rock the baby. I was really good rocking the baby,
so it's National Yo Yo Day today. I wonder how
(01:28):
many people under the age of like thirty five, no
what a yo yo is. There is actually a National
yo Yo Museum which is in Chico, California.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So I'm gonna go out to Chico.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
You can see the National Yo Yo Museum, which I'm
told has the world's largest yo yo, which weighs two
hundred and fifty six pounds and is displayed at the
National Yo Yo Museum, assuming that is still open, and
the yo yo is in the Hall of Fame, the
National Toy Hall of Fame, which is in Rochester, New York,
(02:04):
home of Felexus, America's favorite drag queen caller, and way
back in nineteen ninety nine, the yo yo a Hall
of Famer.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Very exciting.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
On this podcast, we have Mortal Combat, Not what You
Think and Butterflies. We begin though this being the Saturday podcast,
it's all about the life of Malar. It used to
be about the life of Danny g but he quit
the podcast, so it's about the life of Malar.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
People hear that, they hear that and as well the
life of Malar and you assume it's some kind of
rock and roll existence if you don't listen to the podcast.
If you're new to the podcast, welcome. We're here every Friday.
This is Saturday, and then tomorrow we'll have one for
the mailbag on Sunday. And so if you listen to
(02:50):
the radio show, you think, well, it must be some
kind of rock and roll type situation, you know, sex, drugs,
backstage passes, and I'm here to disappoint you.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I hate to disappoint you.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
My life is mostly the industrial complex of sports takes,
chicken fingers and cuddling with my beloved English bulldog named Moxie,
who spends most of her waking hours farting and looking
disappointed in what I'm doing. And frankly, that's a much
(03:23):
better life anyway. So last weekend we'll taking the hot
top time machine. Last weekend was a celebration my nephew,
little fella named Jude, like Hey Jude, the old Beatles
song turned seven years old. Now seven is the perfect age.
And if you've heard me blabbing over the years, you
(03:43):
know that I've always believed that somewhere between seven and
twelve years old is the golden era of human existence.
Everything is exciting and new, and it's stuff you're actually
gonna remember. You know, you have memories from before them,
you know they're kind of vague and in the back
of your head.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
You get to about seven eight.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think nine is really where it kicks in for
most people. But seven there's stuff I remember from that age,
and every day feels important. A trip to go get
ice cream feels like a national holiday. You're not worried
about your cholesterol, you don't care about taxes, you're not
worried about the parking politicians, whether your left knee makes
(04:26):
noises every time you stand up, or your right knee,
or your elbows barking. And then as you get older,
every experience becomes a comparison.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
To how happy you were when you were seven.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Like my little guy here, Jude, my nephew, was asked
by us, like what do you want for your birthday
from your uncle and your aunt? And turns out it
was not a toy. Shockingly, it was not a video game.
It was not mountains of stuff. He wanted to spend
(05:01):
time with the family at an amusement park. Now we
did get gifts and all that, you want to go
to the amusement park, we could not attend his birthday party.
Not that we don't love going to seven year old
birthday parties, but we couldn't make it. So He's like,
let's come to the amusement park. I want to spend
time with the family. And how sweet is that?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Now?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Meanwhile, adults, us grown ups, spend thousands of dollars on
therapy and all kinds of crap to try to recreate
the feeling that this little fella is going through right
now now. The chosen destination was Knots Berry Farm in
southern California and Buena Park, not Disneyland. Not Disneyland, We're
(05:43):
talking about Knots. Think of Disneyland like the Beatles Knots
if you're.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Not from southern California.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Knots is a really good garage band that still has
loyal fans, except they're getting older. And Disneyland and Knots
are seven miles apart geographically if you put the maps
app on your phone, seven miles. However, they might as
well be about seven galaxies apart in terms of cultural impact,
(06:12):
if you.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
So before we went, we did any what any responsible
adult would do, reconnaissance opposition research. I had not been
an Osbury farm and sometime we approached this trip the
same way Sean McVay would prepare for a playoff game.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
We wanted numbers.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
We looked at the analytics, the cost of parking, how
much is food, potential, financial land mines that we need
to know about, And so we did our research, looked
at the prices, questioned whether or not it would have
just been better to buy the aisle of toys at
the toy shop for the kid, and swallowed my tongue
(06:51):
almost The tickets, the food, the parking, everything looked like
it had been priced by someone who had recently suffered
some kind of traumatic head injury. Now, fortunately, my sister
in law had season passes to nots she goes all
the time, and so as a result, they allow you
to get some discount tickets for.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Friends to come. Which was not a small victory. This
was a huge victory.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So then I looked at the parking, and then I
looked again, and I wait, wait a minute, forty dollars
forty dollars the park to leave your car sitting motionless
on asphalt, Like what are you the Bellagio in Vegas?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Like that's Vegas price? Forty dollars the park. Are you
kidding me?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Oh? You Dodger Stadium parking lots have become the greatest
scam in America. And if you really want to make
a lot of money and not have much liability, open
up a parking lot near a stadium amusement park. This
happened to be the actual parking lot at the amusement park.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
What a hustle.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
At least when you buy a steak, which is also
often a ripoff, somebody has to cook it. They have
to cook a side dish often. And parking is literally
paying money so your vehicle can take a cat nap.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And so my wife then reached out to her aunt
Teresa there who was already planning on joining the gaggle
at Knots Berry Farm, and she offered free parking.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
She has a pass and she had parking on there.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And just like that, forty dollars saved the ant, becoming
the MVP before we even entered the gates. It's those
little small victories. So then my wife discovered the Knots
Premium Dining Plan, which I didn't even know was a thing.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
So forty five dollars which is a lot, a little
more than parking, and what does that get you?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Gets you?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
According to the website, one meal every ninety minutes, one
drink every fifteen minutes soft drink, Coca Cola products. The
moment I heard that, something awakened inside me. All right,
So I'm like, ohkay, So I get a meal every
ninety minutes at select venues in knots. I can get
(09:20):
a drink every fifteen minutes. I'm not really interested in
roller coasters anymore. I don't fit in the good ones
and the small ones. I don't want to go on
that I do fit in. I wasn't interested in the
entertainment options. I wasn't even interested in celebrating the birthday.
Not that I don't like birthdays. I just I was like, fine,
I had found my mission, my game, if you will,
(09:44):
my purpose for this day, the dining plan, and I
were now engaged in Mortal Kombat. This is a spin
off of the Mortal Kombat. You know this the Mortal
Kombat that is the adult vers not the arcade version
and not Spurry Farm. Thought they were gonna pull a fast.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
One on me.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Oh you're not gonna You're not gonna eat that much food.
You're not gonna get your money's worth on this. You
know we're gonna say this forty five dollars thing. You'll
eat a couple of meals, You'll be busy, You're not
gonna pay attention.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
They were wrong, they were very wrong. They had accidentally
created a competition. And I'm a competitor, all right.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I've got the fighting spirit and I was going to
beat the system. I immediately deployed advanced technology in order
to take down not Sperry Farm.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
What would that be? My Apple Watch? Now?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Unlike the cheating assholes, there are no rules against the
Apple Watch. No one at security when I came through
the metal detectors to enter not Sperry Farm asked me
about my Apple Watch.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
It is perfectly legal.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It is not contraband like the buzzer that certain members
of the astros.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It is believed.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
So I remember the deal was every ninety minutes I
get a new meal. So I set my timer on
my trusty Apple Watch. Every ninety minutes it buzzed. That
was a direct line in my stomach. Time to eat
gummy now not unlike a casino slot machine telling a
(11:23):
degenerate gambler to keep pulling the lever.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
No, no, no, this was no gambling. It was acquiring pizza
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
So the watch became my personal trainer, an important tool
to beat the man. Except instead of counting steps, I
counted opportunities to consume food.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I also got a lot of steps. Every alert felt important.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
It's like congratulations, you have unlocked a higher level and
another meal on this game spin off of Mortal Kombat.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And I wasn't writing attractions. I was harvesting value.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I was enjoying getting one that you getting something over
the man.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
And meanwhile, the food itself, well, let me describe the food.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
The pizza tasted exactly like I remember at elementary school
in the cafeteria. You know that pizza get in the cafeteria.
In my case, it was from like nineteen eighty seven.
And I'm not telling you he was similar. I'm telling
you exactly the same as as nineteen eighty seven cafeteria,
elementary school pizza. Somewhere there's a lunch lady named Doris
(12:31):
who is smiling if she's still alive, like, ah, that's
my pizza pretzel, very proud of itself. And I would
be too for as much as they charged for the pretzel.
The popcorn, which is one of the cheapest foods to make,
was covered in butter and smiling at a cost of
nine dollars for popcorn. The lemonade, which I'm happy to
(12:55):
report no fruit was harmed in the making of the lemonade.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It appeared to be based on.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
The taste, assembled in a laboratory somewhere, no actual fruit
participated in its creation. Knots has this blueberry drink, which
it was okay, but it tasted to me like it
was a chemistry experiment. I'm not judging unless I am.
I was more focused on scoring points. I was worried
(13:21):
about scoring points.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
That was my mission.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
By the end of the day, let's go to the
stat line, let's go to the Kompu box.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Stats not bad. I started out with a.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Barbecue sandwich which was on a scale of one to
ten minus three.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
That was nineteen dollars and a bag of chips.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I had a I mentioned the pizza combo, which is
now I paid nineteen dollars for this.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Not a full pizza.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
It was one slice of nineteen eighty seven cafeteria pizza,
as Doris would approve, two breadsticks and that's it. Not
a full pizza, just one slice, two bread six That
was nineteen dollars, which is I believe a felony. The
pretzel was ten dollars. That's why it was smiling mentioned
the popcorn nine dollars. Now, the beverages were five fifty each,
(14:16):
and that's very important if you're keeping score as you're
listening here, five fifty per drink. And I had not one,
not two, not three, not four, not five, not six,
not seven, not eight, not nine. Actually I did have nine,
nine beverages at five dollars and fifty cents, So I
could have had more.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I could have had more. Now, keep in mind these
were not all for me.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
They were not all for me that I distributed to
the group. Think of me as a robin Hood, if
you will, very similar to robin Hood, and so I
would get the drinks, and if I didn't need one,
I would.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Hook up a family member.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Think about like Robinhood, if Robinhood specialized in artificially flavored beverages.
The final tally, let's go to the scoreboard right now,
and the scoreboard reads one hundred and sixty five dollars
and fifty cents worth of food based on the inflation
of the pricing at kno Sbury Farm.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's food and drink all in. I spent forty five
dollars on.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
The food pass, which means, if my malord math is correct,
I made a profit of sixty one dollars and fifty cents,
which is a return on investment of roughly one hundred
and thirty six percent. And Warren Buffett doesn't put those
numbers up. Nobody, even Bernie Madoff, didn't put those kind
of numbers up for one glorious day, not.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
A radio blow hard, none on this day. I was
a hedge fund manager.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
The entire experience fascinated me because amusement parks have perfected
this unique economic model. They charge you to get in,
like the ticket is. It's not free to get in,
that's discounted. That gets in, and then the real games
begin because once you're inside, you become a captive audience.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It's similar to what.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
They've done in professional sports and college sports. You suddenly
start making decisions you would never make anywhere else. Who
in their right mind would be like, let me get
a small lemonade for five dollars and fifty cents that
it has no lemon in it?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Sure? Why not?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
How about a nineteen dollars slice of nineteen eighty seven
cafeteria pizza made by Doris? Why not a fifty dollars
stuff Boysenberry who says, no, make it make sense now?
Outside the gates, these prices would trigger some kind of
congressional hearing. Inside the gates, everyone just kind of nods,
(16:58):
keeps on walking. Okay, I'll get that ten dollar pretzel.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Now. I did wander into the Knots gift.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Shop by mistake, and I.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Am not making this up.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I saw what appeared to be a tiny stuffed berry.
It was kind of a thing of grapes or boison berries.
I didn't even know what it was. It was purple,
and it was about the size of your hand.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
They were charging fifty.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Bucks fifty The thing was not alive, that it was
not breathing, It didn't do any tricks, It was not
trained by a professional. It was a stuffed berry. Fifty dollars.
I expected it to help come home and take out
the trash and do the dishes and clean up a
little bit. And the stuff berry looked very arrogant, like
(17:47):
it knew that somebody was eventually going to buy it,
and it just had to wait. Some cute little girl
was going to go in there with no concept of money,
and she would use her cute little girl skills the
skullduggery on her daddy or her uncle or her mom or.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Whoever her aunt to.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Get that stuffed animal, and that dad or whoever would
buy that for.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
His little baby. So you know that happened. It happens
all the time. That's why they do it.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That's the brilliance of amusement park pricing. Everything is overpriced,
and it somehow people seem to walk around very happy.
They leave with smiles. Maybe that's because the real product
is not the food or the rides or the fifty
dollars stuffed animals, it's the memories. And if that's true,
(18:42):
my little guy, my nephew Jude, got exactly what he wanted.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
He spent the entire day with family.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
The entire day with family, Nobody was staring at phones
at least eighty percent of the time, nobody.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Was worried about work.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Everyone was laughing and for a few hours, actually it
was a long day.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Adults got to feel like they were seven years old again.
Right now.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
As for me, I left with a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Not because of the rides. I didn't.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I went on a feel, but not because of the
birthday thing, not because of the memories Nana.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Although I did take some photos.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
That's why we had the old word thing that we
did yesterday, which was cheese, Say cheese when you take
a photo, because we handed the phone to people and
they were like, hey, all right, I'm gonna take a photo.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Say cheese. So anyway, I left not.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
With this sense of accomplishment, because somewhere deep inside my
neurotic brain, I was convinced I.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Had beaten the system that.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Knots very farm thought they were gonna pull the fast
one on me. They wanted my money, and I took
their dining plan. I squeezed every frickin penny, every nickel
out of it, and I walked away feeling like.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I had won the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
MVP Park most likely made millions of dollars that weekend.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yet in my head, I was the hero. I was
the victor. And that's really.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Often what adulthood is like, right, convincing yourself that you've
won tiny, meaningless battles while your Apple watch reminds you
it's time for another slice of pizza and a ten
dollars pretzel and all that. All right, I did want
to mention, before you know we're moving on here on
(20:33):
the podcast, I did want to mention that the big event,
other than Ferk Dog having his account blocked, the other
big event would be the butterflies.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That happened this week on the show. So it's time
to look back.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
As mentioned in a previous episode, last weekend, we talked
about what was going to happen. We were supposed to
have this on Monday into Tuesday, and then the la
Rams traded for Miles Garrett, so that left everything up.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, so listen, time flies when you're having.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Fun, or when you're getting older and all that stuff,
or when you're spending way too much time looking for
a plastic lottery hopper. That just chunks of your life
disappear without explanation.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So the NFL book them as you know, returned.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Although it was supposed to happen as I said, Monday
and Tuesday, it happened Tuesday and Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It returned to the Ben Malor.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Show, and the most shocking part wasn't the game itself,
which is great.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It wasn't the callers.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
It wasn't even the possibility of NFL players ending up
in handcuffs from New England to Seattle. It was realizing
the last time we played this ridiculous game was twenty
twenty two, four years ago, back when the Wokesters in
society canceled the fun. You can't have any fun? What's
(21:52):
wrong with you? Where did the time go? Nobody knows.
One minute you're talking about bringing back an old radio
bit someday, and the next minute you're squinting at the
calendar wondering how the hell it's already twenty twenty six.
The world changed, right, The NFL changed sports radio. That's
pretty much the same. Some of the callers have changed.
(22:14):
That is definitely different the people that call the show.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Some are the same.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
For example, hollering James appears to be operating on the
exact same software update that he's been using since the
Reagan administration, and thank goodness for that now. This year's
edition to the NFL BOOKAM was historic because it featured
something revolutionary. Wink Wink the hopper, Hop on, Hop off
(22:43):
the hopper, the first ever NFL book I'm done on
the Ben Mally radio show conducted with complete draft lottery integrity.
No funny business, no backroom deals, no hanging chads.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
If you're old, you know what that is, no allegations
of kre option.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
As the last bastion of truth in sports radio, we
take these matters very seriously. We follow the Superman blueprint
faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,
able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. And
although these days, of course I'd settle for getting out
of bed without making those weird noises. The hopper was
(23:24):
essential because we normally do this right after years pass.
We'd do this the NFL book and right after the
super Bowl, and so we'd have a draft and we'd
have the order and all that stuff. You could pick
whoever you wanted. The hopper, though, was the secret sauce
this week, the crown jewel. Now I'm going to take
you behind the microphone here. I did not talk about
this on the radio show. The only problem with the hopper,
(23:48):
hop on, hop off the hopper was.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
We couldn't find it. Nobody knew where it was. Now
we knew we had it. We had used it in
years past.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
For parties to play bing go and whatnot, and at
some point it vanished into a black hole. Now I
asked my wife if she knew where the hopper was,
and she said she thought she did.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And whenever in my life, whenever.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Somebody says they think they know where something is, that's genuinely.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Code almost all the time for good luck pal.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So what followed was a scavenger hunt, a treasure hunt,
a game of Where's Waldough? Except Waldough was a medium
sized plastic lottery machine, a hopper that you spin.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And the balls come out.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So we searched through closets, the garage, storage areas, places
where forgotten old Christmas decorations and Hanukat decorations go to die. Now, eventually,
after what felt like a long excavation we were doing searching.
We were like searching for dinosaurs, if you will, we
(24:59):
found it, buried the farthest corner of a very dark closet,
behind random boxes of junk that should.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Go right to the landfill.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And it was a hellllelujah, helllelujah, momut. The hopper had
been rediscovered, and it feels so good. Indiana Jones never
looked happier finding the arc of the Covenant than we
did finding the Hopper. I should say I did so
without the Hopper. The NFL book them is just people
(25:30):
picking names, and that's fine. We did that for a
long time with the Hopper. Now you've got theater, you've
got drama, you've got suspense, chaos, the possibility of outrage,
which is really what this is all about. Like, people
love the NFL Book, em I am told based on
(25:50):
listener feedback, they love it because it combines three of
humanity's favorite things, hope, chaos, and wild conspiracy theory. The
game itself is completely ridiculous, which might explain why the
p ones can't get enough of it and got very
upset when we'd stopped doing it for a couple of years.
(26:10):
As those who were locked in were on pins and needles,
there were literally butterflies in their stomachs floating around their stomachs,
and those of you that ladybugs had some lady blug
ladybugs floating around as well. So every selection that was
made carried a ripple of excitement. Each spin of the
(26:31):
Mallard Hopper felt like the world's least important lottery drawing.
Yet you couldn't tune out and somehow that made it
even better. The last time we played the NFL book
them back in the day, my old radio partner, my
longtime comrade, Eddie Garcia was part of the festivities. Since then,
(26:52):
let's just say that he's been excommunicated from the Church
of the Ben Malor Show. We'll leave it there to
avoid pissing off the cor being counters who made that decision.
So doing Malor maath, which is often performed without a calculator,
often involving the back of a napkin and a pen
(27:12):
and just chicken scratch and occasionally without adult supervision, the
setup was rather straightforward.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
So there's thirty two teams in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
There are four participants, eight teams each, easy, pasy, simple,
except it wasn't. Since Eddie was decommissioned. You had me,
Ben Coop and Loraina. We didn't have a person in
the fourth chair, so we needed somebody else and we
(27:44):
were one chair.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Short of a full deca chairs.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So instead of solving the problem normally, we turned this
into a bigger thing of a jig. We went to improv.
We chose improv and that's usually our solution for everything.
So introducing the guest picker. That's right, the guest picker.
What what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
The guest picker? Let me explain, I mean, let me explain.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
The guest picker here for you. In case you're like
I don't know what the I don't know what the
guest picker is, I will explain it to you.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
So the guest picker.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Every hour, every single hour, a different caller.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Would come on, right, not American pickers. This is guest pickers.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
So every hour, a different member of the Mallet militia
occupied the legendary edy chair and represented the people. It's
all about the people, right, Democracy has never been more dangerous. Now,
first up was hollering James that yeah, that's right. That
that hollering James was the first guy out, and James
(28:53):
remains one of the great audio experiences in broadcasting. I'm
so lucky that James found Now. He still talks about
that Mallard meet and greet at the Mermaid from several
years back as if it were Woodstock or the moon
landing or UFOs being announced to society, right, and so
(29:14):
listening to James hollering James is always an adventure because
you're you're never You're never entirely sure what's coming. You
know what I mean, You're never entirely sure what's coming next.
There was a story about Kirby Puckett from nineteen eighty
seven that was probably in there a tangent about Tammy
and Montana, a snore, a medical emergency. At one point
(29:39):
he sounded like he was simultaneously breathing, wheezing, and farting.
And I don't know if that's medically possible.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Nevertheless, James found a way. He's an innovator. Our two
we had Manuel in Guardina. Now, I've known Manuel as
a radio friend since my local LA radio days in
the nineteen nineties. That is not a typo the nineteen nineties.
The man has survived more sports radio battles than most
military historians have studied. He's part of the mal Or militia.
(30:13):
He's part of Jim Rome's jungle. He's basically Switzerland. Manuel
and Guardina with the phone line, veteran caller, professional talk
radio survivor. Was great to have Manuel and Guardina. Then
an hour three came Andrew in Boston. Terrific energy, terrific enthusiasm, passion, Unfortunately,
he had apparently just woken up. His allergies had organized
(30:38):
a hostile takeover of his bodily functions. The poor guy
was fighting mucus, flem gravity and fatigue and he powered through.
And that's commitment or stubbornness. The line between the two
are often very blurry. And finally, an hour four we
brought in Marcel in Brooklyn, the Goat, a multi time
(31:02):
caller of the Year, the Bambino, the Babe Ruth of
overnight sports radio. Marcel has somehow built a legendary radio
career around food picks, television recommendations and saying things with
absolute confidence whether they're right or not. He's feuded with
Blind Scott, battled Mike the Loser con as he calls
(31:25):
Mike the Leprechaun. He's tangled with the legendary Mike in
New Hampshire. He's given us the classic drop Pascal see
a com He's basically the Forrest Gump of the Ben
Maler Show. Whenever something memorable happens, Marcel is somehow nearby.
Now because of the Hopper, everything remained completely random. There
(31:47):
were no accusations that were that were verified. There were
some losers saying he was rigged. Trust me, there was
no favoritism.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
There was no rigging. It was decided by the machine.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Now I ended up with the Lrims, the Chargers, the Cowboys,
the Giants, the Bills, the Ravens, the Dolphins, and the Jets,
which means I either have a chance to win this
thing or I'm holding the sports radio equivalent of a
losing lottery ticket.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Only time will tell.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Now, if you want to see the other participants picks,
you can go to the Facebook page at Ben Mahler
Show and Instagram at Ben Mahler on Fox. That's Ben
Maler Show on Facebook, Ben Maller on Fox on the gram.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Now comes the waiting.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
And let's be very clear here, nobody on our show
wants NFL players getting arrested. I want to be very
clear on that. We don't want anyone to get arrested.
That's not the point.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
The point is the game itself is so absurd.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
How absurd is it that we hope people mock it
because nobody gets to visit the Gray Bar Hotel. You
can ridicule us, laugh at us, laugh at the game.
The fact that it's pointless is the point. It's exactly
why it's entertaining.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And so for the.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Next roughly forty five days or so, NFL teams have
downtime before training camp begins in late July, and historically speaking,
that is when some players make some very poor decisions
they'd like to get back. And the scoring system is
rather simple. It's on the Facebook and Instagram page. For
(33:28):
those of you that can't read or don't want to
go ober in there look.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Because you're too lazy. A misdemeanor arrest is one point
one point. Felony arrest is three points.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
If that felony arrest leads to a suspension or a
release which means you're fired, or a commissioner's natty list,
you get five extra points. Now, coaches are big alcoholics
and they do a lot of things to get themselves
in trouble. So coach gets arrested, that's two points. Front
office executive gets arrested. Your GM goes out on a
(33:59):
bench and does a line of coke and gets the arrested.
That's four points. It's fantasy football for the police blotter
is what it is. And at the moment, the callers
hold an early lead. We were just beginning this thanks
to issues involving players connected to the Green Bay Packers
and the forty nine ers. However, it is very early
(34:23):
in the game, very early in the game. A lot
can happen between now and training camp, and that's what
makes the NFL book them special. It's pointless, it's ridiculous,
it's unnecessary, it's probably indefensible, and yet somehow it's one
of the more entertaining things we've ever done, which, now
(34:46):
that I think about it, might also be the perfect
description of sports radio itself. On that note, we will
get out. We are going to have the mail bag
for you tomorrow. Will Pepper in some fun with that.
So we look forward to chatting you with you on
the Sunday mail bag. I have a great rest of
(35:07):
your Saturday. You know the drill, and we'll catch you
next time. And again, just to quote the great Dick
and Dayton, Bye bye, bye bye population
Host
Ben Maller
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