April 18, 2026 • 33 mins
Ben Maller pulls up a chair at the Round Table and explains why this was his destiny—kings, commoners, and burger flippers all welcome. It’s a tale of timing, thrift, and a perfectly circular stroke of karma. Then, Maller flips the script and unloads on Coachella, tracing its journey from gritty, anti-establishment roots to the full-blown Influencer Olympics—selfie sticks, sponsored vibes, and corporate cash running the show. From backyard wins to big-business takeovers, it’s a classic Maller monologue with bite. Like, follow, and subscribe for more unfiltered audio mayhem on the Fifth Hour podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallor starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben
Malor and you there were hanging out side by side.
Happy Saturday to you as we are one week away,
one week from today, the Big Malor Meet and Greet
today the eighteenth of April, and next Saturday we're coming
(00:52):
to the Cincinnati area. Cannot wait. Hopefully you will be
able to attend if you're in that region, if it's
geographically desirable. Mentioned on the Friday podcast, we've had a
bunch of RSVPs. This looks like it's gonna be a
pretty good crowd. And I'm always I always give the
same disclaimer. I'm gonna give it seven more times before
(01:15):
the event that Hey, I don't know who's gonna show up.
I've done some of these where very few people show up.
I've done somewhere they're huge crowds. We've had big crowds
in Boston, Vegas, We've had some big ones in la
we had a great crowd in Seattle when we were
up there. So you never know, you never know who's
gonna show up. And that's the beauty of the Malord
(01:36):
meet and greets. They're not promoted, they just kind of happened.
So we're excited about this, and just like we're excited
to go to Boston in May and really excited about
the WUSS game and to meet some legends who are
planning on attending that. So it's gonna be a lot,
a lot of fun, a lot of fun on this edition,
(01:57):
the Saturday Special Edition of the Fifth Hour, we've got
walk like Vince McMahon and taken over like a cruise ship. However,
we begin with this, it's the Saturday podcast, So it
is the life of Malor the Life of Malor, and
(02:18):
the person who will be in the number two chair
eventually can also join us and give the their life,
their life story, So the Life of Malar and this
is going to be ridiculous and also on brand for
the Fifth Hour podcast. So there is no man, woman,
or child that is in this world that sets out
(02:38):
to become a table guy. It doesn't exist. It doesn't.
You don't wake up one morning and look in the
mirror and say, you know what I want? You know
what I need. Of course I avoid the mirror. I
try not to look. You don't say you know you
know what I want? I want an outdoor table. That
is not how life works. Life happens to you. It
(03:03):
turns out the tables happened to you. And yet here
we are. So the big news this last week or
so at the Malor mansion. We have a new table.
Not just any table, a round table, capital R capital
t the kind of table that walks into your backyard,
(03:24):
looks around and immediately judges your patio furniture and the
plant that's off to the side. And why is there
some moxiepoo over there? Clean that up right now? What's
really going on there? We need to talk. So the
wife found it. I wasn't looking for a table. Why
(03:45):
would I look for a table, of course she did.
The wife always finds it. I find parking tickets. She
finds hidden treasure or was it hidden treasure? So the
table is used in the price tag on said used
table four hundred and fifty dollars. Now, I do not
want to alarm you. I don't want to alarm anyone. However,
(04:08):
when let me phrase it this way, if you're like me,
when I hear outdoor furniture use table four hundred and
fifty dollars, my brain goes to a deep dark place
like the professional wrestler the junkyard dog back in the
(04:28):
day and in the cartoon bubble. In my head, I
close my eyes and I imagine splintered wood, rusted screws,
something sticky. There's always something sticky. When you buy a
used product and a smell an odor, you assume that
(04:51):
just by touching the item, you're going to need a
tetanus shot, that there must be some kind of antibiotics
that are needed for the item that you bought used.
You assume that you are going to regret this. I
assumed this is going to be a regret. And nope, nope, yeah,
(05:12):
believe it or not. The table is built, and I
don't want to be too dramatic. It's built like it
was commissioned by a king, like way back who did
not trust his guests. The table is solid, it is heavy,
it is immovable. If the wind picks up, this table
(05:35):
does not move. The house moves. There's an earthquake, The
table doesn't move. The neighbors can move. Hell no, I
might move. The table will stay. And it's round, which
is very important. Round tables just hit you differently. They do.
They're just better. Rectangular tables are for arguments. You sit
(06:00):
across from someone, you lock eyes, you say something you regret, thanksgiving, politics,
grievances from the nineties, all that crap. The round table different.
They diffuse the tension. The round table says, let's all
(06:21):
get along, that's all. There's no head of the table.
There's no class system at a round table. There's no
power seat. We're all equals here everyone. There's no corners,
which is ironic because the table itself. I'm telling you,
round tables feel like royalty. This table's got eight chairs,
(06:42):
eight and they're comfortable, wide chairs for your fat ass.
And I don't even think I even know eight people
I would want to sit at a table with. Okay,
certainly not at the same time. And yet there they
were eight chairs, all in really good shape, really good shape,
just waiting empty, judging me the ho thing. We looked
(07:03):
it up because this is what you do in modern times.
You can't just enjoy something. You have to validate it
with the interweb. You have to confirm that your happiness
is market approved. Survey says, we looked up the price,
the retail price for the table. Again, we paid four
(07:24):
hundred and fifty bucks for it, so it was like
four hundred So the retail price survey says, what do
you think it is? You think you think it was
actually worth like five hundred bucks. You think it was
worth six hundred bucks. Again, I described it very well.
It's a beautiful, thick, well made, built like a tank table.
So when I saw the price on the interwep if
(07:45):
I want to buy this table brand new, I nearly
fell out on my chair. Yeah with eight chairs. Now
I'm not talking about those eight chairs. I never fell
out my bad chair, the indoor chair, the chair that
knows its time is limited. And so now suddenly I'm
not a guy who was part of a group to
buy a used table. I'm the guy who made an
(08:08):
investment a savvy consumer, which I had little to nothing
to do with a bargain hunter Jamboree, A man of
the people. I gotta tell you, I walk a little differently,
not like an Egyptian. I walk like Vince McMahon into
the ring doing the pimp walk back in the heyday
of professional wrestling. We are happy to report that the
(08:30):
table has adjusted to its new home a little too quickly.
It's already part of the family. It has opinions, it
has expectations, it has needs. It tells me, and I
didn't know tables katalk, but it tells me it's ready
for Benny's Burgers. And I said, how the hell do
you know about Benny's Burgers. I said, well, I had
(08:50):
a conversation with the griddle. I said, I didn't know
the griddle could talk. Yeah, the griddle talk. It says,
the burgers are pretty good, and so not regular burgers,
not store brand burgers, McDonald's burgers or Burger King burgers,
no Whoppers, none of that. Benny's burgers. There's a standard.
Now there's pressure because the the grit the griddle said
this is the good thing. And the griddle is a
(09:12):
little nervous now because now it's gotta it's gotta serve
up those burgers. Pretty well, because the new tables like, hey,
I want I want that burger on my on my table.
And then Moxie came over. Then there's Moxie, my bulldog,
my editor, my life coach. Moxy saw the table, okay,
saw the table, walked up to it, sniffed it, and
(09:35):
when I say walked, walked very slowly, sniffed it and
immediately marked her territory, which in dog language means welcome
to the family, baby, and it also means you belong
to me, and I'm the head, bitch, and you are
just some random piece of metal. You're a hunk of metal,
like the World Series trophy. The table didn't necessarily love that.
(09:57):
I understand the table, you know, just you don't stood it.
Didn't love it. Okay, fine, So these are the little
victories in life that are huge because the world, as
we know, is often a racket. It's a hustle. Everyone's
doing the hustle. Gas prices. You go, I don't drink coffee,
(10:21):
the wife does. You go to Starbucks and the people say,
can you give me a tip? Well, I mean I
just picked up the cup. I did. I went to
pick it up, I ordered it, and you know, the
service fees drive me nuts. The processing fees, the convenience
fees for things that are not convenient. How about the
hotel resort fees at places that are not resorts. It's
(10:41):
death by a thousand third search charges. And you try
to buy a ticket to a concert, and I don't
go to a lot of concerts or shows or whatever,
but you buy a ticket and suddenly you're funding three
different departments you didn't even know existing. There's my favorite
is the handling fee on that when you buy buy tickets,
(11:04):
everything's digital now. Very rarely can you even get a
paper ticket, So you're punching in your information. They are
then sending you it's all computerized. They're sending you a
digital ticket. So what exactly are you handling? I'm asking
for a friend, I clicked a button, that's it, and
(11:25):
you sent something that was likely generated by AI. You've
got our politicians, God bless them. They add taxes like
toppings on a Sunday and just keep piling them on,
piling them on. It's pretty crazy. Or it's like going
to buy a pizza and it's like, well I just
(11:45):
want to cheese pizza. Well, now you know what we'll
give you allives, and we're gonna give you some extra obs.
Well I don't want olives. I don't really like alls.
Well we got you extra olives, that's it. But I
don't like them. Just eat them. It's fine. So when
something breaks your way, this is a this is a break.
This is the universe saying, you know what, big fella,
here's here's You deserve a break today, not at McDonald's,
(12:09):
off some website that sells old outdoor tables. And so
you take it. You don't question it, you don't overthink it,
you don't say what's the catch. You just sit at
the table. The roundtable sounds good. The roundtable again capitalized
because it insists, and it's now the centerpiece of the backyard.
(12:30):
It's the star of the show. It's not subtle, it
doesn't blend in. It announces itself. It says, gather here, peasants,
bring me food, and try not to screw this up.
You know. It whispers that. It whispers that, And there
is something almost poetic that's actually too strong here mildly
(12:53):
amusing about the fact that I've always had an affection
for roundtable pizza, and I believe it's northern California institution
round Table Pizza. There are some locations in southern California.
There's one item in particular that is really amazing on
the menu. It's the garlic twist, the Parmesan garlic twists.
(13:13):
I believe it's got some different name. It's dangerous, overpowering
garlic with cheese and dough, and the kind you eat
one of and then suddenly suddenly you have another and another,
and then hours later you're questioning all of your decisions
(13:34):
in life. Now I have been making a knockoff version
of those garlic twists for years. They're a ripoff version.
I make them with enthusiasm, extra piles of cheese, but
they're not the same quality. They're poorly made compared to that.
So maybe this was destiny manifest destiny. It was inevitable
(14:00):
possible that I was always meant to end up owning
as an adult, a literal round table. Maybe the universe
has a sense of humor. I certainly, I certainly don't
have a good one. And now I have the table.
I've got these beautiful chairs, I have the griddle. I
have the dog who thinks she owns all of that.
What I don't have is coordination or balance or the
(14:24):
ability to carry eight plates at once without some kind
of kerfluffle. And yeah, so there will be spills, there
will be items dropped, there will be apologies. Because if
there's one thing I've learned, it's this, you cannot have
the perfect table unless you can you can have it.
(14:49):
You can have the perfect setup. I guess you can
have all these great plans and then you have to
live them. You have to live life, you know, And
it's like that old quote, God laughs at your plans.
So yeah, I guess you who have a perfect table,
you'd have this great set up, the plan, and then
stuff happens, which is why ultimately the table is the star,
not me. Never me. The table is there. It's gonna
(15:12):
be reliable. I can tell it's gonna outlive me, and
it'll be wonderful. And I'm sure I will cook burgers
the way I like them, which is well done, and
people will complain, those evil people that like blood and
see the blood in the meat. So the table just
is and for once, just once, that's enough fired up
(15:33):
for the table, fired up for the table. So meanwhile,
as we turn the page on this The Fifth Hour Podcast,
one week one week if you forgot earlier, one week
from the great Cincinnati area mallor meet and greet, and
we'll be in Newport, Kentucky, just a mile away from
the Reds Ballpark. They're having a grand old time, grand
(15:54):
old time at Strong's Brick Oven Pizzeria in Newport, Kentuck.
Looking for that. So I have never been to the
Coachella music venue. I guess they call it technically the
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. So by not going
(16:15):
to Coachella, I of course immediately qualify as an expert
on the subject. I believe that's how this works. The
less you've experienced something, the more qualified you are to
explain it. So I believe that's how people review restaurants
on Yelp. Anyway, a radio friend of mine I was
(16:39):
in a text chain with reached out to me the
other day and asked if I was going out to Coachella,
which is a very odd question to ask considering A
I like music, I'm not a music person, and B
I don't generally enjoy large events. So I was I
(17:02):
was like, why are you asking me this? You know
the answer. Are you just looking for someone to engage
and brag, a humble brag that you're going to Coachella?
Is that what you're doing here? So we went back
and forth a little bit, and I was like, you know,
baking in the desert like a rotisserie chicken does not
seem like a great thing, you know, if you put
(17:25):
a VIP wristband on a rotisserie chicken. And so again
the guy asked if I'd ever gone, and that triggered
what I call the Great Almost Coachella Adventure. I told
the story that begins in a audio land long long ago,
and it begins with promise, it includes mild paranoia, and
(17:48):
ends with a spoiler alert me comfortably not going. So
if you've been with the show a long time, like
Alf the Alien Opinter or Supermarket Steve, you might remember
Terry and England might remember this as well. There was
a guy called called the show. There's a guy called
in the show not unusual. What was unusual was his claim. Now,
(18:15):
I mentioned on last week's podcast, it's very important to
know a guy. You got to know a guy, but
you gotta know the right guy, and it can't be
a bogus guy. So this guy's like, hey, calls up
he's I love the show, and I want to help
give back to the show, which is sound and we
(18:36):
love that. You know that sounds good to me. So
these give me the whole rap, right usual nonsense and
talking about this, that and the other thing. And I
work security at Coachella, and I know a guy. So
when you say you know a guy, I assume you
know a guy. And in my circle, that's a big deal. Right.
(18:59):
In this case, it was trust me bro. I saw
it on the internet. So he claimed that he had
done some work and he knew some people and he
had connections and he could get us VIP passes. Not
just passes, mind you, VIP backstage passes, the kind that
makes you feel very important until you realize almost anyone
(19:24):
else out there can get them. They just have to
spend a little money. Now, we weren't going to spend
any money. Now. I'm a naturally suspicious person. I think
you figured that out listening. I'm a jaded realist, the
cynical type individual. I'm gonna show me state of mind.
I am, however, a natural lazy person. And if you're lazy,
(19:50):
you're you're not exactly out there taking risks. So I
don't do things that might involve discomfort if I can
avoid them. Certainly don't want uncertainty standing for long periods
of time near a bunch of strangers that are higher
than a kite, wearing hats that looked like they were
(20:10):
assembled from a craft store clearance bin. So I started
doing some due diligence, some light reading about Coachella, and
I don't want to say research, that's probably not the
right word. I was just fussing around, and then I
started doom scrolling, and what I found was not that great.
(20:35):
There was talk of dust, not just regular dust, desert dust.
Now what is desert dust? Desert dust is the kind
of dust that doesn't just politely sit on the shelf. Instead,
it launches a full scale invasion of your lungs, your eyes,
your soul. And so then I'm reading about bathrooms. There
(20:59):
were the discussion that did not make things better, words
like not enough long lines, extreme heat, Where did my
dignity go? Those things kept popping up, how much are
porta potties? Why can't they afford more? The number of
(21:20):
people that attended the event and the number of people
that had access to bathrooms were not the math wasn't mathing.
So at this point I think maybe this VIP experience
involves me standing in a slightly shorter line while still
questioning why I'm even here, and then poof gone, abducted
by aliens, vanished, no follow up, no tickets, no explanation,
(21:43):
just gonzo see a later sucker and like a magician,
except instead of pulling a rabbit out of the hat,
he pulled himself out of a conversation, the conversation where
he had promised us tickets to Coachella, tucking me coop eddie.
I think Roberto was on the show at the time,
(22:05):
and so there you go, abracadabra. Now you see it,
now you don't. So my Coachella experience ended before it began,
which for me is the ideal way to attend most
large gatherings. Now that being said, I am fascinated by
this concert in Palm Desert Coachella, much like Comic Con
in San Diego, and like the humble bleacher creatures at
(22:29):
Yankee Stadium where these other ballparks, the bleacher bums in Chicago,
these things all started out by the people for the people,
and they've all been commandeered, and that's the word, not evolved,
not matured, not grown up with the times, commandeered, taken
over like a cruise ship by people who immediately raise
(22:52):
the price of drinks and install a overpriced gift shop.
So the origin story matters mostly because it makes the
current version feel like a punchline. Let's go in the
hot tub time machine, way back to nineteen ninety three,
and there they were. Pearl Jam decided that they had
had enough of Ticketmaster and it's very creative interpretation of
(23:19):
service fee. We talked about that earlier in the pod.
So they boycotted Pearl Jam, boycotted Ticketmaster. They staged a
show at the Empire Polo Club and proved you did
not need the machine to put on a massive event.
It was scrappy, rebellious, a middle finger with amplifiers, and
(23:44):
that spark led to this guy named Paul and his
crew at Golden Voice to launch Coachella. Now, this eventually
originally happened in nineteen ninety three with Pearl Jam, but
then nineteen ninety nine Coachella began. And when it started,
tickets were fifty dollars. Bands like Rage Against the Machine
and Beck played and they said, essentially they pay us
(24:08):
later we believe in this, which is either noble, incredibly noble,
or the last time anyone in entertainment undered the phrase hey,
I'm good you help you pay me later without laughing.
Like the festival lost money, a lot of money. In fact,
(24:29):
Coachella nearly died, which in retrospect, might have preserved its
innocence forever, kind of like when a band breaks up
before releasing an album. So instead survival happened, and survival
led to a sale. They were losing a lot of
money by twenty oh one, so eight years after the
(24:53):
beginnings of Coachella, the company sold or was sold to
a the global entertainment giant, for seven million dollars, which
is a lot of money. However, when you consider the
amount of revenue, like, oh okay, that is about what
Coachella now generates every couple of hours selling wristbands to
(25:17):
people who insist there they're just there for the for
the vibes, and that's it. That's it, and that's when
the slow transformation began. Not overnight. Didn't happen overnight. These
things never happen overnight. The only thing that happens overnight
is the Ben Mather show. It's more like watching a
small coffee shop gradually add more menu items until one
(25:40):
day you're paying eleven dollars for something with oat foam?
What is oat foam? What is that? I don't know.
It's got a good story to it, though, so corporate
money does. It doesn't just go kool aid man and
knock the wall over and go oh yeah, do that.
It redecorates. Suddenly you now have tiers, then more tiers,
(26:06):
then tiers that gave birth to other tiers, and then
there's the The VIP becomes the ultra VIP, the mega VIP. Well,
what's the difference. Well, it's one word, that's the difference.
What do I get? I'm not going to tell you
what you get, and I'm not sure what I paid for. However,
I assume I'm better than you that VIP Right, sponsorships arrive,
(26:30):
American Express doesn't just sponsor. It becomes part of the ecosystem,
the entire event. There's sections existing because a credit card
company decided they should exist. The crowd changes, not entirely,
it's it's noticeable. Music festivals used to be about hearing bands,
(26:51):
and that was that. Now it's about not about hearing bands.
It's about seeing bands and being seen with bands. You
have to be seen hearing bands and watching bands, and
that's it. And this is where the comic Con comparison
really lands. San Diego Comic Con started as a gathering
(27:13):
for comic book obsesses, people who actually read comic books,
and the people in entertainment are like, well, there's a
lot of dudes, mostly dudes, and a few women that
go to comic You got to go where the people are.
We're in the advertising business. We had to go with
the people. So then Hollywood starts showing up. They realize
(27:35):
there's a built in audience, and suddenly Comic Con, that
little grassroots, buy the people for the people event, just
a place to sell some comics, became a place to
promote movies about comic books instead of the comic books themselves.
And stars would show up and get limo rides and
(27:57):
tell stories, and the tale started wagging the dog, the
tail started wagging the dog. Coachella followed the same mark.
It began as a music festival with an edge, a
little grit, a little rebellion. Now it's like a lifestyle
brand at this point, influencers who listen I don't blame
(28:21):
these people if they're making their money doing this. By
the way, I think the Internet is mostly the matrix
and there's a lot of manipulation. That doesn't mean there
aren't people watching the influencers, just not as many as
the numbers would indicate. The numbers a little fuzzy on that.
But they're just playing the game, right, They're just playing
the game and turned this into a content creation boot camp.
(28:44):
The fact that brands pay these people to attend to
pose to organically mentioned products in I say air quotes
around the word organically and they do all of this
wall standing in one hundred and two degree heat, pretending
that dehydration is just it's just part of the esthetic.
(29:04):
That's all it is. Welcome to the Influencer Olympics twenty
twenty six going on right now, Final weekend, Final weekend, Coatchella.
You'll see someone holding a drink on these instagrammer accounts.
They're holding a drink they didn't pay for. They're wearing
(29:25):
clothes they didn't buy. They're promoting a brand they didn't
previously know existed until they got a DM all while
telling you how authentic the experience is. It's kind of
like watching a commercial that insists not a commercial. Well no,
it's a commercial. I'm watching something. We know we're not
(29:46):
a commercial. But I was watching a different show and
then you came on for a minute. That's a commercial.
Well no, we're not a commercial. That's it. We're not.
And the prices, the prices are what really complete the
transformation general admission takes. I looked this up. General emission
tickets now run in the hundreds if you can get it.
(30:08):
Food costs that. You know that. We know food's more
expensive now than it used to be, But food costs
what you'd expect if the menu were curated by someone
who believes hunger is a luxury experience. It's not exactly
the prices you'd pay at Augusta Nashville. Drinks are priced
like they come with equity in the festival. They gets
(30:30):
some equity. There are villas you can rent for six figures,
like what are you doing? Which suggests at some point
we stopped attending not me, but you attending Kachella and
started investing in Kachella. This is the bleacher seat problem
just scaled up. Wearing a flower crown with a selfie stick.
(30:55):
It's kind of like the bleachers. The bleachers at Yankee
Stadium used to be the cheap seats. You sat there.
The bleacher creatures a hard bench. You complained about it,
you loved it, you made friends, you created rhythmic chants
and things like that. And now even the worst seat
in the house comes with dynamic pricing, service fees, and
(31:18):
a vague sense that you should have taken out a
small loan to afford peanuts. Why do I need a
small loan for a peanut? What was once accessible has
become exclusive, and I go back to that word, a
luxury situation for the experience. What was once organic has
(31:40):
become curated, and what started out as rebellious has become
a brand. And yet people keep going. Of course they
do because they think that this is is worth that
your obviously the thing it's worth it is an important
bucket list thing in life. And so the thing still works.
(32:03):
The music is still there, the spectacle is obviously still
at Coachella, and there's a certain human instinct to want
to be part of some even if that's something now
requires a corporate banner and extra prices on the tickets.
A payment plan would be nice. Now I don't say
(32:24):
any of this as someone above it. I say it
as someone who merely recognizes the patternicity. It's patternicity, baby,
that's what it is. You build something to fight the system,
the system notices, the system absorbs it, and eventually the
thing you built to escape the machine becomes one of
(32:48):
its more profitable divisions. Pearl Jam tried to boycott the machine.
They did, and Coachella is the Kyle the Pearl Jam.
In many ways, Coachella became one of its flagship products.
That's not irony, that's business, baby. All right, on that note,
(33:11):
we'll get out. We have the mail bag tomorrow. Your
questions are answers on the mail bag. We look forward
to that. Send them early and often, care of Real
fifth hour at gmail dot com. For those of you
in the back of the room who are a little
slow of hearing or writing things down. Real fifth hour
(33:31):
at gmail dot com. All letters, no numbers. We'll have
the mail bag for you. We'll get to that and
we'll do it on the tomorrow podcast. So we'll talk
to you. Then. Have a wonderful, glorious Saturday. Remember week
from today, we're in the Cincinnati area. Malard meet and
greet Newport Kentucky, Strong's brick Oven Pizzeria. Take a bite
(33:53):
out of a Mallard Militia.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Tell me
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallor starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben
Malor and you there were hanging out side by side.
Happy Saturday to you as we are one week away,
one week from today, the Big Malor Meet and Greet
today the eighteenth of April, and next Saturday we're coming
(00:52):
to the Cincinnati area. Cannot wait. Hopefully you will be
able to attend if you're in that region, if it's
geographically desirable. Mentioned on the Friday podcast, we've had a
bunch of RSVPs. This looks like it's gonna be a
pretty good crowd. And I'm always I always give the
same disclaimer. I'm gonna give it seven more times before
(01:15):
the event that Hey, I don't know who's gonna show up.
I've done some of these where very few people show up.
I've done somewhere they're huge crowds. We've had big crowds
in Boston, Vegas, We've had some big ones in la
we had a great crowd in Seattle when we were
up there. So you never know, you never know who's
gonna show up. And that's the beauty of the Malord
(01:36):
meet and greets. They're not promoted, they just kind of happened.
So we're excited about this, and just like we're excited
to go to Boston in May and really excited about
the WUSS game and to meet some legends who are
planning on attending that. So it's gonna be a lot,
a lot of fun, a lot of fun on this edition,
(01:57):
the Saturday Special Edition of the Fifth Hour, we've got
walk like Vince McMahon and taken over like a cruise ship. However,
we begin with this, it's the Saturday podcast, So it
is the life of Malor the Life of Malor, and
(02:18):
the person who will be in the number two chair
eventually can also join us and give the their life,
their life story, So the Life of Malar and this
is going to be ridiculous and also on brand for
the Fifth Hour podcast. So there is no man, woman,
or child that is in this world that sets out
(02:38):
to become a table guy. It doesn't exist. It doesn't.
You don't wake up one morning and look in the
mirror and say, you know what I want? You know
what I need. Of course I avoid the mirror. I
try not to look. You don't say you know you
know what I want? I want an outdoor table. That
is not how life works. Life happens to you. It
(03:03):
turns out the tables happened to you. And yet here
we are. So the big news this last week or
so at the Malor mansion. We have a new table.
Not just any table, a round table, capital R capital
t the kind of table that walks into your backyard,
(03:24):
looks around and immediately judges your patio furniture and the
plant that's off to the side. And why is there
some moxiepoo over there? Clean that up right now? What's
really going on there? We need to talk. So the
wife found it. I wasn't looking for a table. Why
(03:45):
would I look for a table, of course she did.
The wife always finds it. I find parking tickets. She
finds hidden treasure or was it hidden treasure? So the
table is used in the price tag on said used
table four hundred and fifty dollars. Now, I do not
want to alarm you. I don't want to alarm anyone. However,
(04:08):
when let me phrase it this way, if you're like me,
when I hear outdoor furniture use table four hundred and
fifty dollars, my brain goes to a deep dark place
like the professional wrestler the junkyard dog back in the
(04:28):
day and in the cartoon bubble. In my head, I
close my eyes and I imagine splintered wood, rusted screws,
something sticky. There's always something sticky. When you buy a
used product and a smell an odor, you assume that
(04:51):
just by touching the item, you're going to need a
tetanus shot, that there must be some kind of antibiotics
that are needed for the item that you bought used.
You assume that you are going to regret this. I
assumed this is going to be a regret. And nope, nope, yeah,
(05:12):
believe it or not. The table is built, and I
don't want to be too dramatic. It's built like it
was commissioned by a king, like way back who did
not trust his guests. The table is solid, it is heavy,
it is immovable. If the wind picks up, this table
(05:35):
does not move. The house moves. There's an earthquake, The
table doesn't move. The neighbors can move. Hell no, I
might move. The table will stay. And it's round, which
is very important. Round tables just hit you differently. They do.
They're just better. Rectangular tables are for arguments. You sit
(06:00):
across from someone, you lock eyes, you say something you regret, thanksgiving, politics,
grievances from the nineties, all that crap. The round table different.
They diffuse the tension. The round table says, let's all
(06:21):
get along, that's all. There's no head of the table.
There's no class system at a round table. There's no
power seat. We're all equals here everyone. There's no corners,
which is ironic because the table itself. I'm telling you,
round tables feel like royalty. This table's got eight chairs,
(06:42):
eight and they're comfortable, wide chairs for your fat ass.
And I don't even think I even know eight people
I would want to sit at a table with. Okay,
certainly not at the same time. And yet there they
were eight chairs, all in really good shape, really good shape,
just waiting empty, judging me the ho thing. We looked
(07:03):
it up because this is what you do in modern times.
You can't just enjoy something. You have to validate it
with the interweb. You have to confirm that your happiness
is market approved. Survey says, we looked up the price,
the retail price for the table. Again, we paid four
(07:24):
hundred and fifty bucks for it, so it was like
four hundred So the retail price survey says, what do
you think it is? You think you think it was
actually worth like five hundred bucks. You think it was
worth six hundred bucks. Again, I described it very well.
It's a beautiful, thick, well made, built like a tank table.
So when I saw the price on the interwep if
(07:45):
I want to buy this table brand new, I nearly
fell out on my chair. Yeah with eight chairs. Now
I'm not talking about those eight chairs. I never fell
out my bad chair, the indoor chair, the chair that
knows its time is limited. And so now suddenly I'm
not a guy who was part of a group to
buy a used table. I'm the guy who made an
(08:08):
investment a savvy consumer, which I had little to nothing
to do with a bargain hunter Jamboree, A man of
the people. I gotta tell you, I walk a little differently,
not like an Egyptian. I walk like Vince McMahon into
the ring doing the pimp walk back in the heyday
of professional wrestling. We are happy to report that the
(08:30):
table has adjusted to its new home a little too quickly.
It's already part of the family. It has opinions, it
has expectations, it has needs. It tells me, and I
didn't know tables katalk, but it tells me it's ready
for Benny's Burgers. And I said, how the hell do
you know about Benny's Burgers. I said, well, I had
(08:50):
a conversation with the griddle. I said, I didn't know
the griddle could talk. Yeah, the griddle talk. It says,
the burgers are pretty good, and so not regular burgers,
not store brand burgers, McDonald's burgers or Burger King burgers,
no Whoppers, none of that. Benny's burgers. There's a standard.
Now there's pressure because the the grit the griddle said
this is the good thing. And the griddle is a
(09:12):
little nervous now because now it's gotta it's gotta serve
up those burgers. Pretty well, because the new tables like, hey,
I want I want that burger on my on my table.
And then Moxie came over. Then there's Moxie, my bulldog,
my editor, my life coach. Moxy saw the table, okay,
saw the table, walked up to it, sniffed it, and
(09:35):
when I say walked, walked very slowly, sniffed it and
immediately marked her territory, which in dog language means welcome
to the family, baby, and it also means you belong
to me, and I'm the head, bitch, and you are
just some random piece of metal. You're a hunk of metal,
like the World Series trophy. The table didn't necessarily love that.
(09:57):
I understand the table, you know, just you don't stood it.
Didn't love it. Okay, fine, So these are the little
victories in life that are huge because the world, as
we know, is often a racket. It's a hustle. Everyone's
doing the hustle. Gas prices. You go, I don't drink coffee,
(10:21):
the wife does. You go to Starbucks and the people say,
can you give me a tip? Well, I mean I
just picked up the cup. I did. I went to
pick it up, I ordered it, and you know, the
service fees drive me nuts. The processing fees, the convenience
fees for things that are not convenient. How about the
hotel resort fees at places that are not resorts. It's
(10:41):
death by a thousand third search charges. And you try
to buy a ticket to a concert, and I don't
go to a lot of concerts or shows or whatever,
but you buy a ticket and suddenly you're funding three
different departments you didn't even know existing. There's my favorite
is the handling fee on that when you buy buy tickets,
(11:04):
everything's digital now. Very rarely can you even get a
paper ticket, So you're punching in your information. They are
then sending you it's all computerized. They're sending you a
digital ticket. So what exactly are you handling? I'm asking
for a friend, I clicked a button, that's it, and
(11:25):
you sent something that was likely generated by AI. You've
got our politicians, God bless them. They add taxes like
toppings on a Sunday and just keep piling them on,
piling them on. It's pretty crazy. Or it's like going
to buy a pizza and it's like, well I just
(11:45):
want to cheese pizza. Well, now you know what we'll
give you allives, and we're gonna give you some extra obs.
Well I don't want olives. I don't really like alls.
Well we got you extra olives, that's it. But I
don't like them. Just eat them. It's fine. So when
something breaks your way, this is a this is a break.
This is the universe saying, you know what, big fella,
here's here's You deserve a break today, not at McDonald's,
(12:09):
off some website that sells old outdoor tables. And so
you take it. You don't question it, you don't overthink it,
you don't say what's the catch. You just sit at
the table. The roundtable sounds good. The roundtable again capitalized
because it insists, and it's now the centerpiece of the backyard.
(12:30):
It's the star of the show. It's not subtle, it
doesn't blend in. It announces itself. It says, gather here, peasants,
bring me food, and try not to screw this up.
You know. It whispers that. It whispers that, And there
is something almost poetic that's actually too strong here mildly
(12:53):
amusing about the fact that I've always had an affection
for roundtable pizza, and I believe it's northern California institution
round Table Pizza. There are some locations in southern California.
There's one item in particular that is really amazing on
the menu. It's the garlic twist, the Parmesan garlic twists.
(13:13):
I believe it's got some different name. It's dangerous, overpowering
garlic with cheese and dough, and the kind you eat
one of and then suddenly suddenly you have another and another,
and then hours later you're questioning all of your decisions
(13:34):
in life. Now I have been making a knockoff version
of those garlic twists for years. They're a ripoff version.
I make them with enthusiasm, extra piles of cheese, but
they're not the same quality. They're poorly made compared to that.
So maybe this was destiny manifest destiny. It was inevitable
(14:00):
possible that I was always meant to end up owning
as an adult, a literal round table. Maybe the universe
has a sense of humor. I certainly, I certainly don't
have a good one. And now I have the table.
I've got these beautiful chairs, I have the griddle. I
have the dog who thinks she owns all of that.
What I don't have is coordination or balance or the
(14:24):
ability to carry eight plates at once without some kind
of kerfluffle. And yeah, so there will be spills, there
will be items dropped, there will be apologies. Because if
there's one thing I've learned, it's this, you cannot have
the perfect table unless you can you can have it.
(14:49):
You can have the perfect setup. I guess you can
have all these great plans and then you have to
live them. You have to live life, you know, And
it's like that old quote, God laughs at your plans.
So yeah, I guess you who have a perfect table,
you'd have this great set up, the plan, and then
stuff happens, which is why ultimately the table is the star,
not me. Never me. The table is there. It's gonna
(15:12):
be reliable. I can tell it's gonna outlive me, and
it'll be wonderful. And I'm sure I will cook burgers
the way I like them, which is well done, and
people will complain, those evil people that like blood and
see the blood in the meat. So the table just
is and for once, just once, that's enough fired up
(15:33):
for the table, fired up for the table. So meanwhile,
as we turn the page on this The Fifth Hour Podcast,
one week one week if you forgot earlier, one week
from the great Cincinnati area mallor meet and greet, and
we'll be in Newport, Kentucky, just a mile away from
the Reds Ballpark. They're having a grand old time, grand
(15:54):
old time at Strong's Brick Oven Pizzeria in Newport, Kentuck.
Looking for that. So I have never been to the
Coachella music venue. I guess they call it technically the
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. So by not going
(16:15):
to Coachella, I of course immediately qualify as an expert
on the subject. I believe that's how this works. The
less you've experienced something, the more qualified you are to
explain it. So I believe that's how people review restaurants
on Yelp. Anyway, a radio friend of mine I was
(16:39):
in a text chain with reached out to me the
other day and asked if I was going out to Coachella,
which is a very odd question to ask considering A
I like music, I'm not a music person, and B
I don't generally enjoy large events. So I was I
(17:02):
was like, why are you asking me this? You know
the answer. Are you just looking for someone to engage
and brag, a humble brag that you're going to Coachella?
Is that what you're doing here? So we went back
and forth a little bit, and I was like, you know,
baking in the desert like a rotisserie chicken does not
seem like a great thing, you know, if you put
(17:25):
a VIP wristband on a rotisserie chicken. And so again
the guy asked if I'd ever gone, and that triggered
what I call the Great Almost Coachella Adventure. I told
the story that begins in a audio land long long ago,
and it begins with promise, it includes mild paranoia, and
(17:48):
ends with a spoiler alert me comfortably not going. So
if you've been with the show a long time, like
Alf the Alien Opinter or Supermarket Steve, you might remember
Terry and England might remember this as well. There was
a guy called called the show. There's a guy called
in the show not unusual. What was unusual was his claim. Now,
(18:15):
I mentioned on last week's podcast, it's very important to
know a guy. You got to know a guy, but
you gotta know the right guy, and it can't be
a bogus guy. So this guy's like, hey, calls up
he's I love the show, and I want to help
give back to the show, which is sound and we
(18:36):
love that. You know that sounds good to me. So
these give me the whole rap, right usual nonsense and
talking about this, that and the other thing. And I
work security at Coachella, and I know a guy. So
when you say you know a guy, I assume you
know a guy. And in my circle, that's a big deal. Right.
(18:59):
In this case, it was trust me bro. I saw
it on the internet. So he claimed that he had
done some work and he knew some people and he
had connections and he could get us VIP passes. Not
just passes, mind you, VIP backstage passes, the kind that
makes you feel very important until you realize almost anyone
(19:24):
else out there can get them. They just have to
spend a little money. Now, we weren't going to spend
any money. Now. I'm a naturally suspicious person. I think
you figured that out listening. I'm a jaded realist, the
cynical type individual. I'm gonna show me state of mind.
I am, however, a natural lazy person. And if you're lazy,
(19:50):
you're you're not exactly out there taking risks. So I
don't do things that might involve discomfort if I can
avoid them. Certainly don't want uncertainty standing for long periods
of time near a bunch of strangers that are higher
than a kite, wearing hats that looked like they were
(20:10):
assembled from a craft store clearance bin. So I started
doing some due diligence, some light reading about Coachella, and
I don't want to say research, that's probably not the
right word. I was just fussing around, and then I
started doom scrolling, and what I found was not that great.
(20:35):
There was talk of dust, not just regular dust, desert dust.
Now what is desert dust? Desert dust is the kind
of dust that doesn't just politely sit on the shelf. Instead,
it launches a full scale invasion of your lungs, your eyes,
your soul. And so then I'm reading about bathrooms. There
(20:59):
were the discussion that did not make things better, words
like not enough long lines, extreme heat, Where did my
dignity go? Those things kept popping up, how much are
porta potties? Why can't they afford more? The number of
(21:20):
people that attended the event and the number of people
that had access to bathrooms were not the math wasn't mathing.
So at this point I think maybe this VIP experience
involves me standing in a slightly shorter line while still
questioning why I'm even here, and then poof gone, abducted
by aliens, vanished, no follow up, no tickets, no explanation,
(21:43):
just gonzo see a later sucker and like a magician,
except instead of pulling a rabbit out of the hat,
he pulled himself out of a conversation, the conversation where
he had promised us tickets to Coachella, tucking me coop eddie.
I think Roberto was on the show at the time,
(22:05):
and so there you go, abracadabra. Now you see it,
now you don't. So my Coachella experience ended before it began,
which for me is the ideal way to attend most
large gatherings. Now that being said, I am fascinated by
this concert in Palm Desert Coachella, much like Comic Con
in San Diego, and like the humble bleacher creatures at
(22:29):
Yankee Stadium where these other ballparks, the bleacher bums in Chicago,
these things all started out by the people for the people,
and they've all been commandeered, and that's the word, not evolved,
not matured, not grown up with the times, commandeered, taken
over like a cruise ship by people who immediately raise
(22:52):
the price of drinks and install a overpriced gift shop.
So the origin story matters mostly because it makes the
current version feel like a punchline. Let's go in the
hot tub time machine, way back to nineteen ninety three,
and there they were. Pearl Jam decided that they had
had enough of Ticketmaster and it's very creative interpretation of
(23:19):
service fee. We talked about that earlier in the pod.
So they boycotted Pearl Jam, boycotted Ticketmaster. They staged a
show at the Empire Polo Club and proved you did
not need the machine to put on a massive event.
It was scrappy, rebellious, a middle finger with amplifiers, and
(23:44):
that spark led to this guy named Paul and his
crew at Golden Voice to launch Coachella. Now, this eventually
originally happened in nineteen ninety three with Pearl Jam, but
then nineteen ninety nine Coachella began. And when it started,
tickets were fifty dollars. Bands like Rage Against the Machine
and Beck played and they said, essentially they pay us
(24:08):
later we believe in this, which is either noble, incredibly noble,
or the last time anyone in entertainment undered the phrase hey,
I'm good you help you pay me later without laughing.
Like the festival lost money, a lot of money. In fact,
(24:29):
Coachella nearly died, which in retrospect, might have preserved its
innocence forever, kind of like when a band breaks up
before releasing an album. So instead survival happened, and survival
led to a sale. They were losing a lot of
money by twenty oh one, so eight years after the
(24:53):
beginnings of Coachella, the company sold or was sold to
a the global entertainment giant, for seven million dollars, which
is a lot of money. However, when you consider the
amount of revenue, like, oh okay, that is about what
Coachella now generates every couple of hours selling wristbands to
(25:17):
people who insist there they're just there for the for
the vibes, and that's it. That's it, and that's when
the slow transformation began. Not overnight. Didn't happen overnight. These
things never happen overnight. The only thing that happens overnight
is the Ben Mather show. It's more like watching a
small coffee shop gradually add more menu items until one
(25:40):
day you're paying eleven dollars for something with oat foam?
What is oat foam? What is that? I don't know.
It's got a good story to it, though, so corporate
money does. It doesn't just go kool aid man and
knock the wall over and go oh yeah, do that.
It redecorates. Suddenly you now have tiers, then more tiers,
(26:06):
then tiers that gave birth to other tiers, and then
there's the The VIP becomes the ultra VIP, the mega VIP. Well,
what's the difference. Well, it's one word, that's the difference.
What do I get? I'm not going to tell you
what you get, and I'm not sure what I paid for. However,
I assume I'm better than you that VIP Right, sponsorships arrive,
(26:30):
American Express doesn't just sponsor. It becomes part of the ecosystem,
the entire event. There's sections existing because a credit card
company decided they should exist. The crowd changes, not entirely,
it's it's noticeable. Music festivals used to be about hearing bands,
(26:51):
and that was that. Now it's about not about hearing bands.
It's about seeing bands and being seen with bands. You
have to be seen hearing bands and watching bands, and
that's it. And this is where the comic Con comparison
really lands. San Diego Comic Con started as a gathering
(27:13):
for comic book obsesses, people who actually read comic books,
and the people in entertainment are like, well, there's a
lot of dudes, mostly dudes, and a few women that
go to comic You got to go where the people are.
We're in the advertising business. We had to go with
the people. So then Hollywood starts showing up. They realize
(27:35):
there's a built in audience, and suddenly Comic Con, that
little grassroots, buy the people for the people event, just
a place to sell some comics, became a place to
promote movies about comic books instead of the comic books themselves.
And stars would show up and get limo rides and
(27:57):
tell stories, and the tale started wagging the dog, the
tail started wagging the dog. Coachella followed the same mark.
It began as a music festival with an edge, a
little grit, a little rebellion. Now it's like a lifestyle
brand at this point, influencers who listen I don't blame
(28:21):
these people if they're making their money doing this. By
the way, I think the Internet is mostly the matrix
and there's a lot of manipulation. That doesn't mean there
aren't people watching the influencers, just not as many as
the numbers would indicate. The numbers a little fuzzy on that.
But they're just playing the game, right, They're just playing
the game and turned this into a content creation boot camp.
(28:44):
The fact that brands pay these people to attend to
pose to organically mentioned products in I say air quotes
around the word organically and they do all of this
wall standing in one hundred and two degree heat, pretending
that dehydration is just it's just part of the esthetic.
(29:04):
That's all it is. Welcome to the Influencer Olympics twenty
twenty six going on right now, Final weekend, Final weekend, Coatchella.
You'll see someone holding a drink on these instagrammer accounts.
They're holding a drink they didn't pay for. They're wearing
(29:25):
clothes they didn't buy. They're promoting a brand they didn't
previously know existed until they got a DM all while
telling you how authentic the experience is. It's kind of
like watching a commercial that insists not a commercial. Well no,
it's a commercial. I'm watching something. We know we're not
(29:46):
a commercial. But I was watching a different show and
then you came on for a minute. That's a commercial.
Well no, we're not a commercial. That's it. We're not.
And the prices, the prices are what really complete the
transformation general admission takes. I looked this up. General emission
tickets now run in the hundreds if you can get it.
(30:08):
Food costs that. You know that. We know food's more
expensive now than it used to be, But food costs
what you'd expect if the menu were curated by someone
who believes hunger is a luxury experience. It's not exactly
the prices you'd pay at Augusta Nashville. Drinks are priced
like they come with equity in the festival. They gets
(30:30):
some equity. There are villas you can rent for six figures,
like what are you doing? Which suggests at some point
we stopped attending not me, but you attending Kachella and
started investing in Kachella. This is the bleacher seat problem
just scaled up. Wearing a flower crown with a selfie stick.
(30:55):
It's kind of like the bleachers. The bleachers at Yankee
Stadium used to be the cheap seats. You sat there.
The bleacher creatures a hard bench. You complained about it,
you loved it, you made friends, you created rhythmic chants
and things like that. And now even the worst seat
in the house comes with dynamic pricing, service fees, and
(31:18):
a vague sense that you should have taken out a
small loan to afford peanuts. Why do I need a
small loan for a peanut? What was once accessible has
become exclusive, and I go back to that word, a
luxury situation for the experience. What was once organic has
(31:40):
become curated, and what started out as rebellious has become
a brand. And yet people keep going. Of course they
do because they think that this is is worth that
your obviously the thing it's worth it is an important
bucket list thing in life. And so the thing still works.
(32:03):
The music is still there, the spectacle is obviously still
at Coachella, and there's a certain human instinct to want
to be part of some even if that's something now
requires a corporate banner and extra prices on the tickets.
A payment plan would be nice. Now I don't say
(32:24):
any of this as someone above it. I say it
as someone who merely recognizes the patternicity. It's patternicity, baby,
that's what it is. You build something to fight the system,
the system notices, the system absorbs it, and eventually the
thing you built to escape the machine becomes one of
(32:48):
its more profitable divisions. Pearl Jam tried to boycott the machine.
They did, and Coachella is the Kyle the Pearl Jam.
In many ways, Coachella became one of its flagship products.
That's not irony, that's business, baby. All right, on that note,
(33:11):
we'll get out. We have the mail bag tomorrow. Your
questions are answers on the mail bag. We look forward
to that. Send them early and often, care of Real
fifth hour at gmail dot com. For those of you
in the back of the room who are a little
slow of hearing or writing things down. Real fifth hour
(33:31):
at gmail dot com. All letters, no numbers. We'll have
the mail bag for you. We'll get to that and
we'll do it on the tomorrow podcast. So we'll talk
to you. Then. Have a wonderful, glorious Saturday. Remember week
from today, we're in the Cincinnati area. Malard meet and
greet Newport Kentucky, Strong's brick Oven Pizzeria. Take a bite
(33:53):
out of a Mallard Militia.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Tell me
Host
Ben Maller
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