May 15, 2026 • 38 mins
Big Ben recaps the opening chapter of his week-long Commonwealth crusade and the Maller Odyssey to Maine as only the Beethoven of B.S. can. This edition of the Fifth Hour Podcast features lighthouse lore, a Monet moment, the zombie-apocalypse starter kit, paying double for parking, McDonald’s Happy Meal Buckets, the Hype Man from Hell, and preparing for atmospheric reentry turbulence. Add in bachelor parties, naval victories, random roadside adventures, and the inside skinny from behind the microphones, and you’ve got essential weekend listening for the Maller Militia. A must-download travel log packed with chaos, comedy, oddball characters, and classic Benny Brightside storytelling.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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 gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
The clearing House of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mahler
and you. We are together again here through the magic
of the podcast. Did the overnight show last night? Took
a little bit of a pause, came in to the
audio dojo, the remote studio, and here we are now.
(00:53):
I know the podcast went up a little bit later
than normal today. There's reasons for that. We won't get
into it here, however, on this the Epic look Back,
the first of a weekend, a trilogy of episodes of
The Fifth Hour where we look back at the big
trip to Boston this past week and beyond and everything
(01:15):
that went into that, and all that wonderful stuff that'll
be all coming up. We'll start with that today. Have
more tales, I'm sure on the Saturday podcast tomorrow and
then on Sunday we should have the traditional mail bag.
So still time. It's Friday. If you get those questions
in by tonight, for sure you'll be golden. If not,
(01:39):
we can't guarantee anything. But if you want to email
a question in Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com,
Real fifth Email, Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com,
if you would like to have your message be read
on a future edition of the mail bag, again today,
try to get those in as early as possible. We
(02:00):
at least by the night, at least by the night
at a somewhat reasonable hour, just so we have them
and we can compile all of the questions that will
come in. And so again, if you want to be
part of that, the mail bag will return this week.
It seems like we have a good amount of email already.
If you'd like to try to get yours in wedge
(02:21):
it in you can certainly do that if you want,
again Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. On this one,
we're gonna headline it McDonald's happy Meil buckets and to
survive an atmospheric reentry. However, we start as all good
stories do about us now. Now, some people travel to
(02:46):
find themselves. I hear that a lot that you need
to go out and travel around the world to learn
who you are. I kind of know who I am
at this point. I travel to confirm my suspicions that
airport tourists and humanity in general are held together still
with duct tape and bad judgment. And it's been a
(03:09):
very busy travel month. I haven't traveled this much since
I was much younger, and I was fussing around doing
stuff with the Doyers before they actually became good. And
we were just in Cincinnati a few weeks ago and
had so much fun with everyone that came out to
the event we did at Strong's Brick up in Pizzaia
there in Newport, Kentucky, and just a lot of fun
(03:32):
to drag. Can't close the deal Neil and his son
and Tommy and Queen Roxane, Robbie the Mariner fan all
around Cincinnati after the event, but to also meet Justin
in Cincinnati and just Josh and Dick and Dayton and
Ohio Al and everyone else. So I can't mention right
now because though podcast podcast will go too long if
(03:54):
I mentioned everyone otherwise. So for this week that we're
going to talk about here was the Commonwealth Beny the
nomad activated yet again. The Malard Globetrotter era is in
full effect, a back to back and belly to belly
set of Malard meet and greets, the road show that
somehow became equal parts baseball trip history lesson and traveling
(04:18):
three ring circus literally and figuratively more on the circus
person of this event, the three ring circus portion of
this event later. So now I want to point out
we did not fly NonStop from California to Boston. Technically
we could have. There are plenty of NonStop flights from
(04:41):
where I am to Boston, where I am based to Boston,
so technically we could have. However, that would have required
using Los Angeles International Airport, and at this stage of
my life, i'd rather, and I'm not making this up,
I would rather add I had three hours and lose
(05:02):
circulation in my legs, then willingly experience LAX in its
full majesty. LAX is not an airport. It is an
active social experiment designed by some very rude, strange people
who clearly hate travelers. So I avoided at all costs,
(05:25):
and I don't mind these long cross country flights stopping.
I'd prefer to stop somewhere in the middle. Oftentimes you
don't get to pick where you stop, and so anything
to avoid LA. Now, on this trip to Boston, we
stopped in Salt Lake City, which is not all that
far away from LA. It's a short flight from LA
to Salt Lake City. I was hoping for something a
(05:46):
little further in the middle would have made things a
lot better. We stop in Salt Lake, which allowed me
to enjoy what I can only describe to you as
the Mike Rabel experience. Not everyone gets this reference. In fact,
I've learned, as I've told a few of my friends
in the non sports world, they have no idea what
I'm talking about. And I've explained this part of the
(06:08):
story and they look at me like I'm speaking some
foreign language or possibly from somewhere out in the cosmos.
So the Mic Rabel experience in Utah, the top tourist
attraction in that state is apparently not skiing. It's not
the Majestic Mountains covered in snow. It's not the Mormon community,
(06:32):
not the Utah Jazz Airport gift shop where we stopped
and walked by. No, no, no, this is the boutique
where Mike Rabel allegedly bought his wife a present during
that wonderfully weird paparazzi mini scandal, which is still going on.
(06:52):
He was canoodling with Diana Russini for years, and when
the story broke, Vrabel famously was caught by the paparazzo
in Salt Lake City. At the airport there we visited
the boutique known as Hip and Humble, a name that
certainly sounds less like a store and more like a
(07:13):
folk band. Opening for Mumford and Sons years ago, the
paparazzo made that place famous Hip and Humble. Vrabel was
there buying a sweater for his wife, at least according
to the tabloids, although now some say that was a
plant by Rabel's pr people to make them look good. Anyway,
(07:37):
the Wednesday we traveled from the west to the east
was entirely consumed by travel. By the time we had landed,
me and the wife had landed at Logan International Airport,
it was after midnight, the kind of arrival where your
body no longer understands time zones, and your stomach thinks
(07:59):
it's breakfast, while your eyes think they've died, the old
things all falling apart, and I don't really get jet lag.
It was just I was just worn out. I adn't
get a lot of sleep. I'd done the overnight show
leading into the travel day, and so everything's all jumbled
up and whatnot. And then came Thursday, and that is
where the malar Odyssey to Maine took place. So my
(08:22):
wife and I had rented a car and we headed
north on I ninety five through the coastline of Massachusetts,
and we traveled up to Portsmouth in New Hampshire, which
feels like the kind of a town that Hallmark movies
are filmed in before somebody discovers a dead body behind
(08:43):
a lopstock shack in Portsmouth, very similar to where Arnie
Spaniard used to live in Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont, And
in this case, Portsmouth, New Hampshire is a beautiful fishing
town there. It wasn't really tourist season yet, but there
was still a fair amount of tourists us included. You
(09:03):
had a lot of brick buildings, little shops, any kind
of little boat. They've got you covered there. Extremely New England,
Extremely New England. We had lunch at a Burger place,
continued north. After walking around Portsmouth a little bit. We
walked by the Old Temple and some other old buildings,
(09:27):
and then we went north that we didn't get back
on nine ninety five. We used the local roads because
that's the proper way to do coastal Maine. You don't
get on I ninety five, You just you go. And
to be fair, if you're not familiar with the geography,
like Portsmouth, Maine, right across a little bridge is Maine
from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, so it's right there. And you
(09:52):
drive on these roads, you crawl through towns like Kittery, York,
Oh god, quit, I believe I'm saying that right, and
Kenny bunk Port, all of them. I'm telling you, they're
postcard perfect little places that don't get a lot of
publicity if you're not from there, and they're full of lighthouses.
(10:12):
If you're into this kind of thing, if you ever
end up traveling to Boston you want to get the
full experience, I highly recommend it. I'm not from Boston,
I've been able to travel there a lot. It's my
favorite city to visit that I don't live in. And
you travel around and it's got the lighthouses, the beaches,
(10:33):
the old eastern beaches that are not quite like the West,
and stores selling decorative driftwood for the price of a
mortgage payment. And Kenny Bunkport, though for people of a
certain age like me, my hands up there. If you're
of a certain age, Kenny Bunkport still carries the aura
(10:53):
of the political world, the aura of the Bush family compound.
You know, back in the day, that place was treated
like the Summer White House, Kenny Buckport, and it was
always so far away. Being in California, had never been
to that part of the country. And so you hear
back when the internet didn't exist, and my parents would
(11:14):
watch the news at night and they'd be like, they
know the Western or the was it the Summer White
House there and Kenny Buckport with President Bush addressed reporters.
You know. I was like, Okay, So you hear Kenny Bunkport,
and I think of the news and I pictured George H. W.
Bush and boat shoes and that's it. So eventually we
(11:35):
continued up and we reached Portland, a city that we
had remembered fondly from previous trips. I talked very nicely
about Portland, Maine and how beautiful it was. Now sadly,
you should not go back and visit places you truly love,
because they change. Portland now has what I call the fold.
(11:57):
Now the fold is not a positive. The the fold
would be the fentanyl fold. From a distance, it looked charming.
It looked as we had remembered it. It looked just wonderful.
The ocean views, the again, the old brick buildings, the
(12:21):
working harbor. However, up close, the part of downtown that
we happened to park in felt much rougher than it
had been when we had last visited Portland, Maine. That
is possible that we picked the wrong area. And it's
also conceivable that every city, even mid size cities, now
(12:45):
have these same zombie apocalypse starter kit that we have
in Los Angeles or the Tenderloin district in San Francisco.
You know, we've got the skid row here in LA
and the locals were still cool in Maine. Right have
mastered what I call the art of both being friendly
and simultaneously looking annoyed that you exist and why are
(13:07):
you here? Yet they pull it off in a very
nice way. The city itself again, I go back. I'll
use the word monet. It was like a monet painting,
fantastic from far away, slightly concerning up close, slightly concerning
up close. It's all about the lobster merch, the lobster.
(13:28):
I think they sell more lobster shirts than they do
actual lobster at this particular point, at least in that
part of Maine. Now, we eventually drove back towards Boston,
hoping for a late dinner on the North End, only
discovered that nearly every chicken palm joint had closed for
the night. And nothing hurts quite like arriving hungry after
(13:50):
a long drive in the little Italy neighborhood, if you will,
whatever it's called, they're the North End, and realizing that
the universe has decided, no chicken palm for you, No
fetichini for you. Instead, you know what you need. You
need a little baggy of peanuts from the vending machine,
(14:11):
and you need to eat those biscaff cookies that you
saved from the trip. That's what you need. So we
were defeated. Then on on Friday, well that brought a
whole new adventure. We met up with the Kooper Loop
his wife, Lorena, my wife, of course, was there for
a trip to Salem, home of the infamous Salem witch
(14:33):
trials of sixteen ninety two. I believe, I think I'm
right on that a town's so cute they put witches
on the police cars. So more than two hundred people
were accused of witchcraft back in sixteen ninety two, and
nineteen of those people were killed. They were executed. One
poor soul was pressed to death with stones. Seems reasonable. Well,
(14:58):
today Salem had transformed into what I would call a
combination of bourbon street, venice, Beach Times Square, and hot topic.
Every third person looked like they either practice witchcraft or
managed an escape room, or did both. Had to go
to the bathroom. I went to the sale mall, which is,
(15:21):
I would argue, the second most depressing mall I've been to,
outside of the mall in prim Nevada, which is now
closing as prim Nevada is becoming officially a ghost town.
So yeah, we paid for parking, and we paid for
parking again emphasis unpaid, and we did pay, and we
(15:44):
still got a parking ticket. The reason we got the
parking ticket is because in my wife's rush to pay
for the parking. Everything's on an app. Now she accidentally
reversed the zone and the space that we were in
on the app, and we got ding was a twenty
five dollars donation straight to the taxpayers of Salem. You
(16:05):
are welcome. The witches are apparently still extracting revenge, and
oh did they get some more revenge? Because I have
to share this story, and I want you to know,
put every disclaimer I can. I like to support mom
and pop restaurants. I like to support mom and pop
businesses when possible. Do I eat it raising canes? Yes?
(16:28):
I would I rather eat it a mom and pop restaurant. Absolutely,
of course, I'd rather cook my own food at this
particular point, as Angelina and some others know, over the years,
where I've met you. So I visited what I considered
to be the saddest museum I have I've ever been in,
and I've been in some set. I've been to the
College Hall whatever, the Champion thing in Indianapolis, which was horrific,
(16:52):
complete waste of my time and money. Well, this was
the Halloween Museum. How could you f up Halloween? My
wife loves Halloween's favorite holiday. She can't get enough of Halloween.
So we're walking by. These people are out there like, hey,
come in Halloween Museum, you know, see all the great exhibits.
And so my wife hears that. She's Oh, this can't
(17:12):
be bad. It's about Halloween. So we pay our money
and meanwhile I'm standing there realizing that we paid admission
to see what among the highlights on them A hand
to God, Hand to God. I am not making this up. Bree,
who produces this podcast, she will testify to this, even
(17:32):
though she wasn't there. Maybe she'll visit someday. So the
Halloween Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The star of the show
for me was a two thousand and one Target store
display advertisement for Halloween that they featured to show you
the history of Halloween and the Halloween Museum. But wait,
(17:54):
there's more. How about the old McDonald's happy Meal buckets
and Halloween toys that I had as a kid that
are now part of the museum, the Halloween Museum, of
the Museum of Halloween wherever it's called, and my god,
the entire museum was roughly the size of a studio apartment.
(18:18):
It was two rooms. You walk down a room, you
make a left hand turn, you make another left hand turn,
and then you walk down a hallway and then you're out.
Keep my we paid twenty dollars for this. I have
seen larger bathrooms at Bucky's. In fact, I believe a
(18:38):
Bucky's bathroom has more to look at and enjoy than that.
So I say this to encourage you to do better
and be better. Okay, against my opinion on this, it
was not a very enjoyable experience. I was hoping for more.
Just give me a little more, give me a little more,
(19:00):
or charge a little less, just make it free. Honestly, though,
I guess it's that kind of stuff that made the
trip memorable. It's always not the perfect stuff that it's
always it's like, it's the weird moments, the dumb parking tickets.
I tell you this every time we do one of
these things. It's the weird stuff that the chicken palm
(19:22):
that you didn't quite get, the airport boutique connected to
a football gossip story that you've talked about, the realization
that most of America is basically one giant roadside attraction,
stick together stitched together by T shirts, coffee mugs, keychains,
confusion tourists, wearing fleece and somehow, against all odds, it
(19:47):
is still charming. So continuing that, and as Paul Harvey
would say, the rest of the story, page two, So
more on the traveling road side variety show featuring baseball,
suntan lotion, introverts, under duress, and a legally questionable amount
(20:10):
of Finway nostalgia. So after Salem, we shuffled back to
the Seaport Area hotel like Civil War reenactors who had
just seen too much. The rental car went into the valet.
More on that over the weekend, and we returned it
right there, natural habitat in the valet. We went to
(20:33):
our rooms, rested for roughly an hour, not any more
than that, actually a little less, not enough time to
sleep and I'm not a napper, more like a medically
supervised blinking exercise, and watching some HGTV House Hunters, and
then regrouped in the lobby to form voltron or at
(20:54):
least fill up an uber ride to Finway Park. Now,
why did we take an uber ride? Because parking around
Finway is not park. Parking around Finway is a public
mugging that is endorsed by the city leaders in Boston
there is not enough park, hardly any parking. So the
(21:16):
plan was, simp get the game together. We're gonna meet
Mike the Leprechaun at the legendary Cask and Flagon, have
a beer stroll into the ballpark, enjoy America. A fool
proof plan. What could go wrong? So this was the
venue the Cask and Flagon for a previous event when
(21:38):
I was double dipping at WEI doing some Red Sox
review shows and filling in on We's wei's nighttime programming.
We had Wayne from Southey at that event. I did
it for Mala Blair from Maine. He showed up Blind
Scott David from Winter Park, Florida and his parent Roscoe.
(22:02):
We believe the late great David from Winter Park, Florida,
the couple from Maine. That was so great, And that
was then. Now it's a whole new world order, the
Malard Militia. It's always changing. Other than Blind Scott and
a lot of the characters, they stay with the show
for a couple of years and they move on. And
now I should have known immediately this evening, the Friday
(22:26):
Malard Meet greet in Boston was going to go off
the rails because Mike the Leprechaun was operating at a
frequency detectable only by dolphins and late night AM radio listers.
Within moments of my arrival, I was escorted by Mike
the Leprecaun. He dragged me over to meet what he
(22:47):
described as a Mike Rabel lookalike, which apparently is now
a tourist attraction in New England. So okay, and the
guy did look a lot like Mike Rabel. We took
some photos and that was that. Then, while I was
briefly in the powder room attempting to mentally prepare for
more human interaction, Mike the Leprechaun allegedly coded himself in
(23:10):
enough suntan lotion. I don't want to overdramatize this, and
from what I understand, Mike the Leprechaun is such a character.
This guy, he put on a show. He coded himself
with enough suntann lotion to survive atmospheric reentry so he
could go out to the moon, come back and he'd
(23:31):
be safe. Now, I missed the actual event. I was
in the powder room, okay, So I missed the actual
The eyewitness accounts from Coop, his wife Lorrain, and my
wife sounded like they were describing a maritime oil spill,
like the Gulf of America or Gulf of Mexico. Every
call it. They had the big Exxon, Well that was
(23:53):
not Exxon. That was an oil rig that leaked right
or the Exon Valdies in Australia or Australia in Alaska.
It's early. So I was like, again, there's almost moments
I'm like, this is my life. You know, this is
my life. And you know I mentioned this all the time.
I am an active, proud introvert. I am a member
(24:13):
of the Introvert Society of America. I don't walk around
announcing myself like a Carnival barker. I prefer the anonymity
of late night talk radio. I enjoy blending into the wallpaper.
If possible, I would just like to become part of
the sofa. Unfortunately, the job I have requires me to
(24:36):
be a little more out there than that. However, I
pick my spots now. Mike the Leprechaun decided that his
role on this part of the journey was to become
my boxing promoter, my unofficial hype man, the flavor flave
of the Malad Militia everywhere we walked around Finway, he
(24:58):
kept doing the do you know this guy is routine?
Like we were a ringside at a boxing way in
And yeah, I was simultaneously flattered, horrified and searching for
emergency exits and questioning whether or not I could call
in sick and go back to the hotel. And yet, weirdly,
(25:19):
this is the part that shocked me more than any
It seemed like people were recognizing who I was, and
not in a hey aren't you the actor from the
insurance commercial Way? Actual listeners, real people, guys, the guys
that sell merch outside Finway, one of the guys that's
been there for thirty years or more on Lansdow Suite
(25:41):
Street there, Loraina bought a shirt from the guy and
Michael Leprecaun, Hey, this is Hollywood. Do you know who
this is? You know that whole thing. And the guy
claimed that he listened for years and it seemed legit,
and he told some stuff that only a listener would know.
And you know, random fans who knew details about the
show either way, either way they were you know, they
(26:04):
were incredibly great at improv or This little overnight radio
show genuinely reaches humans So this was deeply unsettling to
me personally because in my head the show still feels
like it's being broadcast from a submarine somewhere under Nebraska,
(26:24):
and the only people that listen are hollering James Blind,
Scott Marked, the full Name Guy, and a few others.
That's it. So then we entered the cathedral itself. Finway
Pack the game was the Red Sox and Rays technically, however, honestly,
the star was Finway. The old old Bayard doesn't feel manufactured.
(26:50):
Modern stadiums all feel like they were focused grouped by
tech consultants who say words like synergy. Finnway feel alive,
slightly crooked, very imperfect, a little cranky, a little cranky
like an old uncle who still complains about Ted Williams
(27:10):
getting snubbed in nineteen forty one, and that's why he's
on ice right now. The place it just has a
breadth to it, and even the seats appear emotionally exhausted. Now,
we were very lucky. We got hooked up thanks to
mikel leprechaon Mike in New Hampshire with our pavilion I
think it's called the Pavilion Club seats which were tremendous
(27:33):
wild views of Finnways, Green Monster, and the whole Boston skyline,
and it was just wonderful, just wonderful, and the energy
in the park was surprisingly lively, considering this version of
the Socks has all the consistency of public Wi Fi.
(27:53):
During the game, I went down to find the boys room,
and Will from Boston and his buddy Sam tracked me
down to say hello, tremendous guys. Will's a big podcast listener,
very kind, always humbling when somebody voluntarily admits that they
they will spend hours listening to my nonsense. And we
(28:14):
chatted about Will had mentioned one of the pods that
we had done a while back. Talked about the history
of the national anthem at sporting events and how it
started mostly because of marketing. They could sell some extra
tickets and it was in Chicago and during World Wars,
and it just kind of stuck around and it became
(28:36):
a thing and if you didn't do it, you were bad,
and you had to do it. And that's that. And now,
as for the food, excellent. My go to as always
the soft pretzel, partly because I'm a simple man and
partly because I'm still emotionally damaged from a previous episode
of this podcast. After paying nearly thirteen dollars for a
pretzel in Cincinnati, the Reds charged extra for cheese like
(29:02):
it was black market. Caviare, like, what are you doing,
Cincinnati Reds? For God's sakes, I thought stuff was supposed
to be cheaper. In Boston, that same thirteen dollars pretzel
was six. I think it was like six bucks. No
cheese cup. I didn't need the cheese cup. The member
was cold cheese in Cincinnati. At at least they didn't
(29:26):
need to refinance my home to get that extra piece,
you know, that little piece of cheese, a cup of cheese. Meanwhile,
the Red Sox won two nothing on home runs by
William Abreu and Sedane Rafaela. If you know who those
guys are, most don't, and Connelly early struck out eight
(29:47):
Tampa Bay batters, and so he was on the mound
the star of the show there. I am I'm told
obligated to mention the baseball part of this because technically
that's partially why we were there. No after the game,
we did wander over the Mighty Squirrel Brewing Company after
having to ask a couple of Boston's finest How the
(30:08):
hell that we get over to the Mighty Squirrel Brewing
Company from Fenway, which was real close and turned into
a true centerpiece of the evening. A tremendous set up
upstairs thanks to Jamie Walsh, the GM there, who treated
us unbelievably well, total pro You can tell this man
(30:28):
has been in the game for a while. He also
carried himself like a man who absolutely knows where several
metaphorical Red Sox bodies may or may not be buried.
Who knows? And then came the parade of characters. Let
me introduce you to some of these guys, because Kathy
and Madison demands it. She's a woman that needs to know.
So I walked upstairs. The first person I was greeted
(30:51):
by was Dave the trash Man with his son, who
greeted me first when I got upstairs and immediately brought
enough energy to power eastern Massachusetts. The man radiated enthusiasm,
genuine warm, just a good soul, right hilarious, and you
(31:14):
don't call the show or anything like that, but he
and his son were there, and his kid's a really
cool kid, and he's like the rival now of Danny DeVito,
not the actor, of course, our fellow trash man somehow
just made perfect sense in the Mallard universe. Dana, better
known by his stage name The Cape Cod Paperboy, showed
up his dad still delivering papers, I believe in his eighties,
(31:36):
which means he has worked approximately seventy nine years, longer
than most people under thirty are willing to. And the
cape Cod paper Boy a name you probably know. He's
been very active on social media over the years, picks
his spots and telling me about life on the Cape
and all that. Phil from Boston Boy, it was wonderful
to see Phil. I've done enough of these things now
(31:57):
in Boston where I just some of the faces I
kind of recognized, and Phil was one of them. He
rolled in, of course, hard to miss a guy wearing
a vintage black Mallar merch item, the famous T shirt
that we sold years ago, and it's like finding It's
like discovering an ancient artifact from a lost civilization. It
(32:18):
was a different period of time on the show, and
Phil also explained to me how the Finway Wieners had
gone down since the glory days. I used to romanticize
the Monster Dogs, the Finway Monster Dog, and Phil pointed
out that it's just not the same. Avellino and Priscilla
(32:39):
as a lady there they showed up great people. Avellino
works on bridges, he fixes How about this job, my guy,
Avellino man, he works on bridges, fixing bridges around Boston,
and he's one of our four AM listeners getting the
jump on the traffic. The four AM, I think for
(32:59):
maybe five maybe it's like five to six. But he's
up early. He's up early, as was Dave the trash Man.
And they don't hear the whole show. They just tow
the end of it. And he that means, that means
something right. And so while the rest of society is unconscious,
we got the bridge workers, the garbage guys, the truck
drivers who are all listening to me babble about sports
(33:23):
and UFOs and all that stuff. And that's still hard
to process. Like I have Alina, really cool to chat
with him, very nice things to say, pumped up my ego,
which I appreciate that I didn't you need that it
doesn't hurt. And he mentioned he wanted to meet Blind Scott,
and seemed like everyone did more than that. In a minute,
(33:44):
Jack was there, one of the genuine good souls. Also
met met his his you know his what's the word
I'm looking for? I met his story in life. He
very quite kindness is the way I'll described Jack. The
kind of person who restores your faith in humanity a
little bit. He's helping taking care of a loved one
(34:04):
relative of his who's had a few curveballs from the
game of life. And then so Jack was there, and
Avelino and all these guys, and then blind Scott. Blind
Scott became the folk hero of the night, and it
was pretty funny. People kept buying him drinks at a
pace usually associated with bachelor parties or some kind of
(34:28):
naval victory. And by the end of the evening, I
and it wasn't even the end. I was just like,
we had to move downstairs because they were closing the upstairs.
So we moved downstairs, and I escorted blind Scott downstairs.
Because less of helping a friend or in this case,
a caller, and more of guiding a shop. It was
(34:49):
kind of like guiding a shopping cart with one bad wheel,
and I was very hard to move it. It was
absolute chaos. It was beautiful chaos. And that's the thing again.
I bring this up all the time, and it's like, well,
you keep repeating yourself. I don't want has to say it.
These meet and greets, they sound silly. Who would want
to go to that? They're dumb? Why do you do it?
You know it cost you your time and all that stuff.
(35:11):
And then you know when you when you describe them
and you in an email or you know, if you
have a pad of paper or something, it's a bunch
of radio listeners gathering in random bars and restaurants after
baseball games. And it's but it's more than that. It's
more than that. You know Tip O'Neil famously and he's
a Boston political icon from a million years ago. But
(35:33):
Tip O'Neil famously said, all politics is local, and I
believe the same as with syndicated sports radio. And Boston
has always been a town that does not embrace what
we do. I heard that when I first got in
the business. It's a local sports radio town. It does
not do syndication. They syndicated shows have never done well
on the radio in Boston. And we've made a bit
(35:56):
of an impact on the overnight We've been on there
a long time, and it's in large part, I think
because of things like this, Like this show airs on
a lot of places, a lot of back roads, a
lot of big cities, all over the United States and Canada,
on six hundred plus affiliates. Very lucky. You got a
big bully pulpit American Forces Network. We're on serious XM
(36:18):
satellite radio. However, the real magic is these little dopey moments,
these malard meat beause, these tiny human interactions, handshakes, stories,
breaking bread, quick conversation that last five minutes and somehow
sticks in your memory forever. And to me, that's it.
(36:41):
You break bread. I don't always eat at these things.
But you're together, and you're there and you're bonding, and
there's a connection there, and that's that's what the Mallard
Militia really is, right, Not downloads or ratings. I have
to worry about that crap at work, not about an
affiliate map. That's not your problem, that's somebody else's problem.
(37:02):
It is a collection of wonderfully odd people, yours truly included.
Deciding that for one evening, despite possibly having social anxiety issues,
being introverted and whatnot, for one evening you stop being
this anonymous voice in the dark and become real. And
also some of you have never even been voices in
(37:24):
the night. You just like Dave the trash Man and
these other guys. You know, our friend Avelino who's fixing bridges,
not a caller, not a caller, but there they were
so for one little moment. So we've we've gone very
long on this pod, so we will will put the
pause button on. This will recap the Worcester part of
(37:46):
the special weekend on tomorrow's podcast, the Saturday Podcast. This
will include a special Cloak and Dagger meeting in the
middle of the night, also a UFO encounter with what
was it alf Or was it not alf Andre? Where
was the dog? And a whole lot more, among others.
(38:07):
All of that to look forward to as we continue
our in depth coverage all weekend long, as we look
back at the great Malord sojourn to the Commonwealth and
all that that included. And until then, we'll say, as
Dick and Dayton would say, bye bye, bye bye,
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 gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
The clearing House of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard starts right now in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mahler
and you. We are together again here through the magic
of the podcast. Did the overnight show last night? Took
a little bit of a pause, came in to the
audio dojo, the remote studio, and here we are now.
(00:53):
I know the podcast went up a little bit later
than normal today. There's reasons for that. We won't get
into it here, however, on this the Epic look Back,
the first of a weekend, a trilogy of episodes of
The Fifth Hour where we look back at the big
trip to Boston this past week and beyond and everything
(01:15):
that went into that, and all that wonderful stuff that'll
be all coming up. We'll start with that today. Have
more tales, I'm sure on the Saturday podcast tomorrow and
then on Sunday we should have the traditional mail bag.
So still time. It's Friday. If you get those questions
in by tonight, for sure you'll be golden. If not,
(01:39):
we can't guarantee anything. But if you want to email
a question in Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com,
Real fifth Email, Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com,
if you would like to have your message be read
on a future edition of the mail bag, again today,
try to get those in as early as possible. We
(02:00):
at least by the night, at least by the night
at a somewhat reasonable hour, just so we have them
and we can compile all of the questions that will
come in. And so again, if you want to be
part of that, the mail bag will return this week.
It seems like we have a good amount of email already.
If you'd like to try to get yours in wedge
(02:21):
it in you can certainly do that if you want,
again Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. On this one,
we're gonna headline it McDonald's happy Meil buckets and to
survive an atmospheric reentry. However, we start as all good
stories do about us now. Now, some people travel to
(02:46):
find themselves. I hear that a lot that you need
to go out and travel around the world to learn
who you are. I kind of know who I am
at this point. I travel to confirm my suspicions that
airport tourists and humanity in general are held together still
with duct tape and bad judgment. And it's been a
(03:09):
very busy travel month. I haven't traveled this much since
I was much younger, and I was fussing around doing
stuff with the Doyers before they actually became good. And
we were just in Cincinnati a few weeks ago and
had so much fun with everyone that came out to
the event we did at Strong's Brick up in Pizzaia
there in Newport, Kentucky, and just a lot of fun
(03:32):
to drag. Can't close the deal Neil and his son
and Tommy and Queen Roxane, Robbie the Mariner fan all
around Cincinnati after the event, but to also meet Justin
in Cincinnati and just Josh and Dick and Dayton and
Ohio Al and everyone else. So I can't mention right
now because though podcast podcast will go too long if
(03:54):
I mentioned everyone otherwise. So for this week that we're
going to talk about here was the Commonwealth Beny the
nomad activated yet again. The Malard Globetrotter era is in
full effect, a back to back and belly to belly
set of Malard meet and greets, the road show that
somehow became equal parts baseball trip history lesson and traveling
(04:18):
three ring circus literally and figuratively more on the circus
person of this event, the three ring circus portion of
this event later. So now I want to point out
we did not fly NonStop from California to Boston. Technically
we could have. There are plenty of NonStop flights from
(04:41):
where I am to Boston, where I am based to Boston,
so technically we could have. However, that would have required
using Los Angeles International Airport, and at this stage of
my life, i'd rather, and I'm not making this up,
I would rather add I had three hours and lose
(05:02):
circulation in my legs, then willingly experience LAX in its
full majesty. LAX is not an airport. It is an
active social experiment designed by some very rude, strange people
who clearly hate travelers. So I avoided at all costs,
(05:25):
and I don't mind these long cross country flights stopping.
I'd prefer to stop somewhere in the middle. Oftentimes you
don't get to pick where you stop, and so anything
to avoid LA. Now, on this trip to Boston, we
stopped in Salt Lake City, which is not all that
far away from LA. It's a short flight from LA
to Salt Lake City. I was hoping for something a
(05:46):
little further in the middle would have made things a
lot better. We stop in Salt Lake, which allowed me
to enjoy what I can only describe to you as
the Mike Rabel experience. Not everyone gets this reference. In fact,
I've learned, as I've told a few of my friends
in the non sports world, they have no idea what
I'm talking about. And I've explained this part of the
(06:08):
story and they look at me like I'm speaking some
foreign language or possibly from somewhere out in the cosmos.
So the Mic Rabel experience in Utah, the top tourist
attraction in that state is apparently not skiing. It's not
the Majestic Mountains covered in snow. It's not the Mormon community,
(06:32):
not the Utah Jazz Airport gift shop where we stopped
and walked by. No, no, no, this is the boutique
where Mike Rabel allegedly bought his wife a present during
that wonderfully weird paparazzi mini scandal, which is still going on.
(06:52):
He was canoodling with Diana Russini for years, and when
the story broke, Vrabel famously was caught by the paparazzo
in Salt Lake City. At the airport there we visited
the boutique known as Hip and Humble, a name that
certainly sounds less like a store and more like a
(07:13):
folk band. Opening for Mumford and Sons years ago, the
paparazzo made that place famous Hip and Humble. Vrabel was
there buying a sweater for his wife, at least according
to the tabloids, although now some say that was a
plant by Rabel's pr people to make them look good. Anyway,
(07:37):
the Wednesday we traveled from the west to the east
was entirely consumed by travel. By the time we had landed,
me and the wife had landed at Logan International Airport,
it was after midnight, the kind of arrival where your
body no longer understands time zones, and your stomach thinks
(07:59):
it's breakfast, while your eyes think they've died, the old
things all falling apart, and I don't really get jet lag.
It was just I was just worn out. I adn't
get a lot of sleep. I'd done the overnight show
leading into the travel day, and so everything's all jumbled
up and whatnot. And then came Thursday, and that is
where the malar Odyssey to Maine took place. So my
(08:22):
wife and I had rented a car and we headed
north on I ninety five through the coastline of Massachusetts,
and we traveled up to Portsmouth in New Hampshire, which
feels like the kind of a town that Hallmark movies
are filmed in before somebody discovers a dead body behind
(08:43):
a lopstock shack in Portsmouth, very similar to where Arnie
Spaniard used to live in Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont, And
in this case, Portsmouth, New Hampshire is a beautiful fishing
town there. It wasn't really tourist season yet, but there
was still a fair amount of tourists us included. You
(09:03):
had a lot of brick buildings, little shops, any kind
of little boat. They've got you covered there. Extremely New England,
Extremely New England. We had lunch at a Burger place,
continued north. After walking around Portsmouth a little bit. We
walked by the Old Temple and some other old buildings,
(09:27):
and then we went north that we didn't get back
on nine ninety five. We used the local roads because
that's the proper way to do coastal Maine. You don't
get on I ninety five, You just you go. And
to be fair, if you're not familiar with the geography,
like Portsmouth, Maine, right across a little bridge is Maine
from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, so it's right there. And you
(09:52):
drive on these roads, you crawl through towns like Kittery, York,
Oh god, quit, I believe I'm saying that right, and
Kenny bunk Port, all of them. I'm telling you, they're
postcard perfect little places that don't get a lot of
publicity if you're not from there, and they're full of lighthouses.
(10:12):
If you're into this kind of thing, if you ever
end up traveling to Boston you want to get the
full experience, I highly recommend it. I'm not from Boston,
I've been able to travel there a lot. It's my
favorite city to visit that I don't live in. And
you travel around and it's got the lighthouses, the beaches,
(10:33):
the old eastern beaches that are not quite like the West,
and stores selling decorative driftwood for the price of a
mortgage payment. And Kenny Bunkport, though for people of a
certain age like me, my hands up there. If you're
of a certain age, Kenny Bunkport still carries the aura
(10:53):
of the political world, the aura of the Bush family compound.
You know, back in the day, that place was treated
like the Summer White House, Kenny Buckport, and it was
always so far away. Being in California, had never been
to that part of the country. And so you hear
back when the internet didn't exist, and my parents would
(11:14):
watch the news at night and they'd be like, they
know the Western or the was it the Summer White
House there and Kenny Buckport with President Bush addressed reporters.
You know. I was like, Okay, So you hear Kenny Bunkport,
and I think of the news and I pictured George H. W.
Bush and boat shoes and that's it. So eventually we
(11:35):
continued up and we reached Portland, a city that we
had remembered fondly from previous trips. I talked very nicely
about Portland, Maine and how beautiful it was. Now sadly,
you should not go back and visit places you truly love,
because they change. Portland now has what I call the fold.
(11:57):
Now the fold is not a positive. The the fold
would be the fentanyl fold. From a distance, it looked charming.
It looked as we had remembered it. It looked just wonderful.
The ocean views, the again, the old brick buildings, the
(12:21):
working harbor. However, up close, the part of downtown that
we happened to park in felt much rougher than it
had been when we had last visited Portland, Maine. That
is possible that we picked the wrong area. And it's
also conceivable that every city, even mid size cities, now
(12:45):
have these same zombie apocalypse starter kit that we have
in Los Angeles or the Tenderloin district in San Francisco.
You know, we've got the skid row here in LA
and the locals were still cool in Maine. Right have
mastered what I call the art of both being friendly
and simultaneously looking annoyed that you exist and why are
(13:07):
you here? Yet they pull it off in a very
nice way. The city itself again, I go back. I'll
use the word monet. It was like a monet painting,
fantastic from far away, slightly concerning up close, slightly concerning
up close. It's all about the lobster merch, the lobster.
(13:28):
I think they sell more lobster shirts than they do
actual lobster at this particular point, at least in that
part of Maine. Now, we eventually drove back towards Boston,
hoping for a late dinner on the North End, only
discovered that nearly every chicken palm joint had closed for
the night. And nothing hurts quite like arriving hungry after
(13:50):
a long drive in the little Italy neighborhood, if you will,
whatever it's called, they're the North End, and realizing that
the universe has decided, no chicken palm for you, No
fetichini for you. Instead, you know what you need. You
need a little baggy of peanuts from the vending machine,
(14:11):
and you need to eat those biscaff cookies that you
saved from the trip. That's what you need. So we
were defeated. Then on on Friday, well that brought a
whole new adventure. We met up with the Kooper Loop
his wife, Lorena, my wife, of course, was there for
a trip to Salem, home of the infamous Salem witch
(14:33):
trials of sixteen ninety two. I believe, I think I'm
right on that a town's so cute they put witches
on the police cars. So more than two hundred people
were accused of witchcraft back in sixteen ninety two, and
nineteen of those people were killed. They were executed. One
poor soul was pressed to death with stones. Seems reasonable. Well,
(14:58):
today Salem had transformed into what I would call a
combination of bourbon street, venice, Beach Times Square, and hot topic.
Every third person looked like they either practice witchcraft or
managed an escape room, or did both. Had to go
to the bathroom. I went to the sale mall, which is,
(15:21):
I would argue, the second most depressing mall I've been to,
outside of the mall in prim Nevada, which is now
closing as prim Nevada is becoming officially a ghost town.
So yeah, we paid for parking, and we paid for
parking again emphasis unpaid, and we did pay, and we
(15:44):
still got a parking ticket. The reason we got the
parking ticket is because in my wife's rush to pay
for the parking. Everything's on an app. Now she accidentally
reversed the zone and the space that we were in
on the app, and we got ding was a twenty
five dollars donation straight to the taxpayers of Salem. You
(16:05):
are welcome. The witches are apparently still extracting revenge, and
oh did they get some more revenge? Because I have
to share this story, and I want you to know,
put every disclaimer I can. I like to support mom
and pop restaurants. I like to support mom and pop
businesses when possible. Do I eat it raising canes? Yes?
(16:28):
I would I rather eat it a mom and pop restaurant. Absolutely,
of course, I'd rather cook my own food at this
particular point, as Angelina and some others know, over the years,
where I've met you. So I visited what I considered
to be the saddest museum I have I've ever been in,
and I've been in some set. I've been to the
College Hall whatever, the Champion thing in Indianapolis, which was horrific,
(16:52):
complete waste of my time and money. Well, this was
the Halloween Museum. How could you f up Halloween? My
wife loves Halloween's favorite holiday. She can't get enough of Halloween.
So we're walking by. These people are out there like, hey,
come in Halloween Museum, you know, see all the great exhibits.
And so my wife hears that. She's Oh, this can't
(17:12):
be bad. It's about Halloween. So we pay our money
and meanwhile I'm standing there realizing that we paid admission
to see what among the highlights on them A hand
to God, Hand to God. I am not making this up. Bree,
who produces this podcast, she will testify to this, even
(17:32):
though she wasn't there. Maybe she'll visit someday. So the
Halloween Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The star of the show
for me was a two thousand and one Target store
display advertisement for Halloween that they featured to show you
the history of Halloween and the Halloween Museum. But wait,
(17:54):
there's more. How about the old McDonald's happy Meal buckets
and Halloween toys that I had as a kid that
are now part of the museum, the Halloween Museum, of
the Museum of Halloween wherever it's called, and my god,
the entire museum was roughly the size of a studio apartment.
(18:18):
It was two rooms. You walk down a room, you
make a left hand turn, you make another left hand turn,
and then you walk down a hallway and then you're out.
Keep my we paid twenty dollars for this. I have
seen larger bathrooms at Bucky's. In fact, I believe a
(18:38):
Bucky's bathroom has more to look at and enjoy than that.
So I say this to encourage you to do better
and be better. Okay, against my opinion on this, it
was not a very enjoyable experience. I was hoping for more.
Just give me a little more, give me a little more,
(19:00):
or charge a little less, just make it free. Honestly, though,
I guess it's that kind of stuff that made the
trip memorable. It's always not the perfect stuff that it's
always it's like, it's the weird moments, the dumb parking tickets.
I tell you this every time we do one of
these things. It's the weird stuff that the chicken palm
(19:22):
that you didn't quite get, the airport boutique connected to
a football gossip story that you've talked about, the realization
that most of America is basically one giant roadside attraction,
stick together stitched together by T shirts, coffee mugs, keychains,
confusion tourists, wearing fleece and somehow, against all odds, it
(19:47):
is still charming. So continuing that, and as Paul Harvey
would say, the rest of the story, page two, So
more on the traveling road side variety show featuring baseball,
suntan lotion, introverts, under duress, and a legally questionable amount
(20:10):
of Finway nostalgia. So after Salem, we shuffled back to
the Seaport Area hotel like Civil War reenactors who had
just seen too much. The rental car went into the valet.
More on that over the weekend, and we returned it
right there, natural habitat in the valet. We went to
(20:33):
our rooms, rested for roughly an hour, not any more
than that, actually a little less, not enough time to
sleep and I'm not a napper, more like a medically
supervised blinking exercise, and watching some HGTV House Hunters, and
then regrouped in the lobby to form voltron or at
(20:54):
least fill up an uber ride to Finway Park. Now,
why did we take an uber ride? Because parking around
Finway is not park. Parking around Finway is a public
mugging that is endorsed by the city leaders in Boston
there is not enough park, hardly any parking. So the
(21:16):
plan was, simp get the game together. We're gonna meet
Mike the Leprechaun at the legendary Cask and Flagon, have
a beer stroll into the ballpark, enjoy America. A fool
proof plan. What could go wrong? So this was the
venue the Cask and Flagon for a previous event when
(21:38):
I was double dipping at WEI doing some Red Sox
review shows and filling in on We's wei's nighttime programming.
We had Wayne from Southey at that event. I did
it for Mala Blair from Maine. He showed up Blind
Scott David from Winter Park, Florida and his parent Roscoe.
(22:02):
We believe the late great David from Winter Park, Florida,
the couple from Maine. That was so great, And that
was then. Now it's a whole new world order, the
Malard Militia. It's always changing. Other than Blind Scott and
a lot of the characters, they stay with the show
for a couple of years and they move on. And
now I should have known immediately this evening, the Friday
(22:26):
Malard Meet greet in Boston was going to go off
the rails because Mike the Leprechaun was operating at a
frequency detectable only by dolphins and late night AM radio listers.
Within moments of my arrival, I was escorted by Mike
the Leprecaun. He dragged me over to meet what he
(22:47):
described as a Mike Rabel lookalike, which apparently is now
a tourist attraction in New England. So okay, and the
guy did look a lot like Mike Rabel. We took
some photos and that was that. Then, while I was
briefly in the powder room attempting to mentally prepare for
more human interaction, Mike the Leprechaun allegedly coded himself in
(23:10):
enough suntan lotion. I don't want to overdramatize this, and
from what I understand, Mike the Leprechaun is such a character.
This guy, he put on a show. He coded himself
with enough suntann lotion to survive atmospheric reentry so he
could go out to the moon, come back and he'd
(23:31):
be safe. Now, I missed the actual event. I was
in the powder room, okay, So I missed the actual
The eyewitness accounts from Coop, his wife Lorrain, and my
wife sounded like they were describing a maritime oil spill,
like the Gulf of America or Gulf of Mexico. Every
call it. They had the big Exxon, Well that was
(23:53):
not Exxon. That was an oil rig that leaked right
or the Exon Valdies in Australia or Australia in Alaska.
It's early. So I was like, again, there's almost moments
I'm like, this is my life. You know, this is
my life. And you know I mentioned this all the time.
I am an active, proud introvert. I am a member
(24:13):
of the Introvert Society of America. I don't walk around
announcing myself like a Carnival barker. I prefer the anonymity
of late night talk radio. I enjoy blending into the wallpaper.
If possible, I would just like to become part of
the sofa. Unfortunately, the job I have requires me to
(24:36):
be a little more out there than that. However, I
pick my spots now. Mike the Leprechaun decided that his
role on this part of the journey was to become
my boxing promoter, my unofficial hype man, the flavor flave
of the Malad Militia everywhere we walked around Finway, he
(24:58):
kept doing the do you know this guy is routine?
Like we were a ringside at a boxing way in
And yeah, I was simultaneously flattered, horrified and searching for
emergency exits and questioning whether or not I could call
in sick and go back to the hotel. And yet, weirdly,
(25:19):
this is the part that shocked me more than any
It seemed like people were recognizing who I was, and
not in a hey aren't you the actor from the
insurance commercial Way? Actual listeners, real people, guys, the guys
that sell merch outside Finway, one of the guys that's
been there for thirty years or more on Lansdow Suite
(25:41):
Street there, Loraina bought a shirt from the guy and
Michael Leprecaun, Hey, this is Hollywood. Do you know who
this is? You know that whole thing. And the guy
claimed that he listened for years and it seemed legit,
and he told some stuff that only a listener would know.
And you know, random fans who knew details about the
show either way, either way they were you know, they
(26:04):
were incredibly great at improv or This little overnight radio
show genuinely reaches humans So this was deeply unsettling to
me personally because in my head the show still feels
like it's being broadcast from a submarine somewhere under Nebraska,
(26:24):
and the only people that listen are hollering James Blind,
Scott Marked, the full Name Guy, and a few others.
That's it. So then we entered the cathedral itself. Finway
Pack the game was the Red Sox and Rays technically, however, honestly,
the star was Finway. The old old Bayard doesn't feel manufactured.
(26:50):
Modern stadiums all feel like they were focused grouped by
tech consultants who say words like synergy. Finnway feel alive,
slightly crooked, very imperfect, a little cranky, a little cranky
like an old uncle who still complains about Ted Williams
(27:10):
getting snubbed in nineteen forty one, and that's why he's
on ice right now. The place it just has a
breadth to it, and even the seats appear emotionally exhausted. Now,
we were very lucky. We got hooked up thanks to
mikel leprechaon Mike in New Hampshire with our pavilion I
think it's called the Pavilion Club seats which were tremendous
(27:33):
wild views of Finnways, Green Monster, and the whole Boston skyline,
and it was just wonderful, just wonderful, and the energy
in the park was surprisingly lively, considering this version of
the Socks has all the consistency of public Wi Fi.
(27:53):
During the game, I went down to find the boys room,
and Will from Boston and his buddy Sam tracked me
down to say hello, tremendous guys. Will's a big podcast listener,
very kind, always humbling when somebody voluntarily admits that they
they will spend hours listening to my nonsense. And we
(28:14):
chatted about Will had mentioned one of the pods that
we had done a while back. Talked about the history
of the national anthem at sporting events and how it
started mostly because of marketing. They could sell some extra
tickets and it was in Chicago and during World Wars,
and it just kind of stuck around and it became
(28:36):
a thing and if you didn't do it, you were bad,
and you had to do it. And that's that. And now,
as for the food, excellent. My go to as always
the soft pretzel, partly because I'm a simple man and
partly because I'm still emotionally damaged from a previous episode
of this podcast. After paying nearly thirteen dollars for a
pretzel in Cincinnati, the Reds charged extra for cheese like
(29:02):
it was black market. Caviare, like, what are you doing,
Cincinnati Reds? For God's sakes, I thought stuff was supposed
to be cheaper. In Boston, that same thirteen dollars pretzel
was six. I think it was like six bucks. No
cheese cup. I didn't need the cheese cup. The member
was cold cheese in Cincinnati. At at least they didn't
(29:26):
need to refinance my home to get that extra piece,
you know, that little piece of cheese, a cup of cheese. Meanwhile,
the Red Sox won two nothing on home runs by
William Abreu and Sedane Rafaela. If you know who those
guys are, most don't, and Connelly early struck out eight
(29:47):
Tampa Bay batters, and so he was on the mound
the star of the show there. I am I'm told
obligated to mention the baseball part of this because technically
that's partially why we were there. No after the game,
we did wander over the Mighty Squirrel Brewing Company after
having to ask a couple of Boston's finest How the
(30:08):
hell that we get over to the Mighty Squirrel Brewing
Company from Fenway, which was real close and turned into
a true centerpiece of the evening. A tremendous set up
upstairs thanks to Jamie Walsh, the GM there, who treated
us unbelievably well, total pro You can tell this man
(30:28):
has been in the game for a while. He also
carried himself like a man who absolutely knows where several
metaphorical Red Sox bodies may or may not be buried.
Who knows? And then came the parade of characters. Let
me introduce you to some of these guys, because Kathy
and Madison demands it. She's a woman that needs to know.
So I walked upstairs. The first person I was greeted
(30:51):
by was Dave the trash Man with his son, who
greeted me first when I got upstairs and immediately brought
enough energy to power eastern Massachusetts. The man radiated enthusiasm,
genuine warm, just a good soul, right hilarious, and you
(31:14):
don't call the show or anything like that, but he
and his son were there, and his kid's a really
cool kid, and he's like the rival now of Danny DeVito,
not the actor, of course, our fellow trash man somehow
just made perfect sense in the Mallard universe. Dana, better
known by his stage name The Cape Cod Paperboy, showed
up his dad still delivering papers, I believe in his eighties,
(31:36):
which means he has worked approximately seventy nine years, longer
than most people under thirty are willing to. And the
cape Cod paper Boy a name you probably know. He's
been very active on social media over the years, picks
his spots and telling me about life on the Cape
and all that. Phil from Boston Boy, it was wonderful
to see Phil. I've done enough of these things now
(31:57):
in Boston where I just some of the faces I
kind of recognized, and Phil was one of them. He
rolled in, of course, hard to miss a guy wearing
a vintage black Mallar merch item, the famous T shirt
that we sold years ago, and it's like finding It's
like discovering an ancient artifact from a lost civilization. It
(32:18):
was a different period of time on the show, and
Phil also explained to me how the Finway Wieners had
gone down since the glory days. I used to romanticize
the Monster Dogs, the Finway Monster Dog, and Phil pointed
out that it's just not the same. Avellino and Priscilla
(32:39):
as a lady there they showed up great people. Avellino
works on bridges, he fixes How about this job, my guy,
Avellino man, he works on bridges, fixing bridges around Boston,
and he's one of our four AM listeners getting the
jump on the traffic. The four AM, I think for
(32:59):
maybe five maybe it's like five to six. But he's
up early. He's up early, as was Dave the trash Man.
And they don't hear the whole show. They just tow
the end of it. And he that means, that means
something right. And so while the rest of society is unconscious,
we got the bridge workers, the garbage guys, the truck
drivers who are all listening to me babble about sports
(33:23):
and UFOs and all that stuff. And that's still hard
to process. Like I have Alina, really cool to chat
with him, very nice things to say, pumped up my ego,
which I appreciate that I didn't you need that it
doesn't hurt. And he mentioned he wanted to meet Blind Scott,
and seemed like everyone did more than that. In a minute,
(33:44):
Jack was there, one of the genuine good souls. Also
met met his his you know his what's the word
I'm looking for? I met his story in life. He
very quite kindness is the way I'll described Jack. The
kind of person who restores your faith in humanity a
little bit. He's helping taking care of a loved one
(34:04):
relative of his who's had a few curveballs from the
game of life. And then so Jack was there, and
Avelino and all these guys, and then blind Scott. Blind
Scott became the folk hero of the night, and it
was pretty funny. People kept buying him drinks at a
pace usually associated with bachelor parties or some kind of
(34:28):
naval victory. And by the end of the evening, I
and it wasn't even the end. I was just like,
we had to move downstairs because they were closing the upstairs.
So we moved downstairs, and I escorted blind Scott downstairs.
Because less of helping a friend or in this case,
a caller, and more of guiding a shop. It was
(34:49):
kind of like guiding a shopping cart with one bad wheel,
and I was very hard to move it. It was
absolute chaos. It was beautiful chaos. And that's the thing again.
I bring this up all the time, and it's like, well,
you keep repeating yourself. I don't want has to say it.
These meet and greets, they sound silly. Who would want
to go to that? They're dumb? Why do you do it?
You know it cost you your time and all that stuff.
(35:11):
And then you know when you when you describe them
and you in an email or you know, if you
have a pad of paper or something, it's a bunch
of radio listeners gathering in random bars and restaurants after
baseball games. And it's but it's more than that. It's
more than that. You know Tip O'Neil famously and he's
a Boston political icon from a million years ago. But
(35:33):
Tip O'Neil famously said, all politics is local, and I
believe the same as with syndicated sports radio. And Boston
has always been a town that does not embrace what
we do. I heard that when I first got in
the business. It's a local sports radio town. It does
not do syndication. They syndicated shows have never done well
on the radio in Boston. And we've made a bit
(35:56):
of an impact on the overnight We've been on there
a long time, and it's in large part, I think
because of things like this, Like this show airs on
a lot of places, a lot of back roads, a
lot of big cities, all over the United States and Canada,
on six hundred plus affiliates. Very lucky. You got a
big bully pulpit American Forces Network. We're on serious XM
(36:18):
satellite radio. However, the real magic is these little dopey moments,
these malard meat beause, these tiny human interactions, handshakes, stories,
breaking bread, quick conversation that last five minutes and somehow
sticks in your memory forever. And to me, that's it.
(36:41):
You break bread. I don't always eat at these things.
But you're together, and you're there and you're bonding, and
there's a connection there, and that's that's what the Mallard
Militia really is, right, Not downloads or ratings. I have
to worry about that crap at work, not about an
affiliate map. That's not your problem, that's somebody else's problem.
(37:02):
It is a collection of wonderfully odd people, yours truly included.
Deciding that for one evening, despite possibly having social anxiety issues,
being introverted and whatnot, for one evening you stop being
this anonymous voice in the dark and become real. And
also some of you have never even been voices in
(37:24):
the night. You just like Dave the trash Man and
these other guys. You know, our friend Avelino who's fixing bridges,
not a caller, not a caller, but there they were
so for one little moment. So we've we've gone very
long on this pod, so we will will put the
pause button on. This will recap the Worcester part of
(37:46):
the special weekend on tomorrow's podcast, the Saturday Podcast. This
will include a special Cloak and Dagger meeting in the
middle of the night, also a UFO encounter with what
was it alf Or was it not alf Andre? Where
was the dog? And a whole lot more, among others.
(38:07):
All of that to look forward to as we continue
our in depth coverage all weekend long, as we look
back at the great Malord sojourn to the Commonwealth and
all that that included. And until then, we'll say, as
Dick and Dayton would say, bye bye, bye bye,
Host
Ben Maller
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