October 23, 2021 • 43 mins
Ben gives you a Life of Maller update on a close call in line at the Dodger Stadium snack bar. His Costco walk of shame and the E-Mail showcase of the weekend. But wait there's more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ka boom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes
a week was enough, I think again. He's the last
remnants of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness.
He treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as
the rich pill poppers in the penthouse, to clearing house
of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth
(00:23):
Hour with Ben Maller starts right now. Shadow boxing. Well
come man, the beginning of another edition of the Fifth
Hour with Ben Maller. A heavy weight brew ha ha
as I shadow box myself, flying solo yet again. I
(00:45):
don't need no sticking sidekick. No no, no, no, no
anyway coming up on this edition of The Fifth Hour,
a spinoff of the Ben Maller radio show, only available
in the podcast format and broadcasting from a secret location,
a special podcast studio deep in the north Woods. As
(01:07):
we get you started on a Saturday, we have the
Green Team, The Green Team living like Brittney Spears and
showcase what is that all about? You'll find out that
and a whole lot more. Hold your applause, no need
to clap, but we'll get the party started right now.
(01:27):
And we promised the Green Team, so I came close
to having to turn to fist the cuffs at Chavez Ravina. Now,
if you've been listening to the radio show all week,
you know that I was very fortunate enough. I got
to spend some quality time at one of my five
favorite places to hang out, a Major League baseball stadium,
(01:49):
in particular, Dodger Stadium, where I've spent much of my
life watching athletic competition. Now the Dodgers in the Atlanta
Braves meeting in the National League Championship Series, and what
a madhouse that me tell you, this was a madhouse
this week. And I'll take you back to Game three
of the analycs one of the highlights for the Dayers
(02:13):
and I I had snack bar drama. I had snack
bar drama. So I mentioned this on the radio show.
But the great thing about the podcast is we have
plenty of time to dive deep into a story and
there is a lot to tell. This might seem like
a simple story guy online at a snack bar to
(02:35):
get some delicious treats, but it's much more than that.
So I will give you the non condensed version of
what happened. And if you're bored by stories like this,
then just fast forward, no harm, no foul. But I'm
might need my own business now. I'm waiting online, and
there were a bunch of people that were consuming massive
amounts of alcohol Bruskies, and that's what you do at
(02:59):
a in the event, but not me. I'm working, right,
I'm working, Benny, and I got my little press pass on,
so I'm you know, I'll let you know a little
inside radio. We're friends. Why not. If you're listening to
this podcast, you are a higher level in the Mallem militias.
So if you are in the media and you cover
one of these playoff games, what Major League Baseball does
(03:23):
is they give you a food voucher. In this case,
and I don't know how it is in every city,
but in Los Angeles they give you a fifteen dollar
food voucher. So Major League Baseball in the old days,
they used to supply a full boxed meal. But that
costs too much money. And the people in charge, the billionaires,
(03:45):
the aristocrats at Major League Baseball, We're like, oh, what
are we doing here? Why are we spending all this
money on apples and turkey sandwiches and bags of chips.
That's a waste of money. So why don't we just
hand these these people fifteen dollars and it's like a
food stamps ticket. Okay, so fifteen dollars, now that sounds
like a decent amount of money. At least when I
(04:06):
was a kid, fifteen bucks was pretty good. As you know,
if you attend sporting events in any city, it doesn't
matter whether you're in Los Angeles or not. That doesn't
get very far. It does not get very far. And
no discount. By the way, everything's marked up. It's not
like they have a special rate, like an insider rate.
And the one thing that professional sports has mastered more
than anything else price gouging personified. Right, it is insane.
(04:31):
You can take a drink which is some syrup and
some water, maybe a little ice, which is just frozen
water and some sugar and whatnot, and that costs the
people that make the drink, you know, maybe ten cents,
twenty cents, thirty cents, whatever it is, fifty cents you
(04:52):
want to go high, and we'll charge four bucks for
that bottle of water, right, bottle of water. You can
get a whole case of water at Costco for a
very reasonable amount, but at a ballpark, five bucks ten bucks.
You want to a little souvenir batting helmet filled with
garlic fries, that'll set you back like fifteen sixteen bucks
(05:13):
something like that. So, um, the way this works the
food stamp let you again behind the curtain, how we
make the hotdogs. So you are giving a food voucher,
you have to spend it or lose it. No cash back.
So if your order comes to eight dollars, you don't
get the rest of that, and you can't reuse that
(05:34):
somewhere else. It's one shot, shoot your shot, and that's it. Now,
what I have done over the years that I have mastered,
I look at the menu. I've mastered how to get
the most I can possibly get without going over. And
I have scouted the different snack bars at Dodger Stadium,
(05:56):
and it changes every year because of the cost of
all this another, prices have gone up over the years,
and the Dodgers seemingly in the playoffs every year. So
I've had to deal with this for for a long time.
So what I have settled on my order is not one,
but two soft pretzels and a plastic cup, small plastic
(06:17):
cup of nacho cheese, not your cheese. Is my cheese.
So that sets me back a grand total of thirteen
dollars and nineties six cents. I believe with tax is
how much that costs. So that's as close as I
have been able to get to the full fifteen dollar
(06:39):
amount without getting over. One time they charged me for
two cheese cups and that put me over at sixteen
dollars and said, I said, I only want one. Take
back your little cheese cup. I don't want that. But
I do love soft pretzels. It's one of my guilty pleasures,
a well made soft pretzel. And I will tell you
they do not have great soft pretzels at Dodgers Stadium.
(07:00):
They don't. I've had much better pretzels at in in Boston,
in New York, Philadelphia, which is the mecca, as our
guy Fats in Philly tells us, the birthplace of the pretzel,
the soft pretzel, and we also had the late Philly
Rob who was a pretzel benefactor as well. But that's
that's the gold standard. I love those big pretzels, and
(07:23):
they've gotta be soft. You know the problem I've had,
it's hit and miss. At Dodger Stadium, the pretzels sometimes
they leave them in those little rotating things and they
are like rocks, and that sucks and you can't return it, right,
you know, there's no returns, so you're it's it's whatever.
It's Russian Roulette with the pretzels. But I do the
(07:45):
other presils now, regardless of I get to the point. Please.
So I'm online. I'm minding my peas and cues. BOYD,
did I get sidetracked? So I'm minding my pas and
cues and people are ordering alcohol whatever. They're ordering hot dogs,
you know it, garlic fries, and some drunk dude and
his buddy start and going on, you know, going off
(08:08):
on me. They start harassing me. They're all over me
for not wearing the proper wardrobe that I did not
have the Dodger gear. And I am surrounded in a
sea of people in Dodger blue. And there were a
few Atlanta Brave fans, but not many, not many. And
I have a feeling there were some Braves fans that
didn't wear their colors because they heard the reputation of
(08:31):
the parking lots at Dodger stating. So I had a
green shirt on, I had my newsboy hat, which is
what I usually wear when I go out to cover
my receding hairline. So and then and then I, you know,
it's doing my thing, waiting online to get my soft
pretzels and my cup of cheese. And this one dude
was enraged and became engaged with me. Again, I'm just
(08:58):
right there, and this guy is getting on. He's like, well,
you know, Dodger fan, were your colors? Man? Why didn't
you wear your colors right? And I'm like, well, I'm just,
you know, waiting for my food. I tried. I tried
to not respond, but the guy that got right in
my face, and I'm like, all right, you know, I
just I just want to get and and I didn't say, hey,
I'm in the media. I'm better than you. But I
(09:19):
had a media pass and it said media on it.
So the fact that I didn't really respond to the
guy and just kind of blew them off that upset
him more. So. Now this is an escalation situation. So
now the guy's like, wait a minute, you're wearing green.
Are you a Celtic fan? He asked me if I'm
a Celtic fan. And at this point I'm like, well,
(09:42):
should I tell him that I've done radio in Boston
for you know, over the years, off and on, and
I actually own a Celtics hat, and as a Laker hater,
I have great pride of the Celtics because the Celtics
have caused a lot of agony to my friends who
are Laker fans, not really recently, but over the years historically.
And so I was like, probably not best for me
(10:04):
to bring that up, So I shouldn't say that rare
and appropriate you bring that up at Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately,
about the time that this is starting, the skyrocket and
tensions are being ratcheted up. I was able to squeeze
to the front of the line and these bozos skidaddled.
(10:25):
They got a guy on their way and it was
their lucky day. By the way, let me tell you.
You might think I'm just a fat, middle aged overnight
talk your host, but I would have introduced them to
my little friends. I have an alter ego. I don't
talk about it very much. Do not endorse violence, but
(10:45):
when needed, you can call me Benny Bloody Knuckles. Benny
Bloody Knuckles, you can call me that. It's true. Listen,
I'm a pretty mellow guy. I like to goof around,
have a good time. But I build up like a
volcano and hot molten lava goes flying when I become enraged.
(11:08):
That's how That's how I wrote. There's some people that
are mad all the time and just blow offs team
I don't. I don't do that regularly. I just every
once in a while. That's just how how it goes.
You know what I'm saying there. But as far as
the Dodger Games, it was great to see my old friends,
as I always say, And Roberto is there who I
don't see all the time. I'm in the home studio
(11:29):
a lot lead a Lap the producer of the morning show.
He was on hand. I know a lot of the
older crowd that used to when I was in the
back in the day. They be the ushers at Dodgers
Dad and a few of those people left lifers at
Dodger Stadium. So I was able to come across some
of those people and it was a good time, a
good time and just being at the ballpark and the
(11:50):
Oregon and that that that that that that that that
that that that that that that that that that that
I ran into Tom Looney. Tom Looney, he's the news
guy now my old partner Louis, we've had Looney on
the podcast, and the Looney who gave me the single
(12:14):
worst piece of financial advice that I have ever gotten
in my life came from Tom Loony. I don't need
to go into the story right now. I had saved
up my money for a long time. I'll give you
the condensed version. I'd saved up my money for a
long time. And I was debating. There was a place
a condo I was looking at in in downtown l A.
(12:36):
And I was like, I don't know if this is
the right spot. It's in the crappy neighborhoods in Lincoln Heights.
And Looney's like, well, they're gonna fix it up, and
and I told him, I said, well, I keep reading
in the business papers that the housing market is going
to go down. And Looney gave me this big pep
talk and he's like, no, no, no, no, no no, now,
so don't worry about that. You know, they're always gonna
(12:56):
say this kind of thing. If you find a place
you like, just get it, you know. He was trying
to tell me it was a way to go. And
so I purchased a house and a couple of months
after I purchased the house. Yeah, Call Boom goes to
the housing market, and it was nice to see Loony.
(13:19):
That is the first time I have seen Tom Looney
in person. And we used to work together every weekend
for years. For seven years, I think we did that
show on the weekends. I can't believe it lasted that long.
If you ever heard, if you ever heard the show,
then you would know that show was not long for
the world. But eventually that yeah, that did happen at
(13:42):
the end, Eventually that that took place. Anyway, I caught
up with Loony, hadn't seen him since the COVID thing started.
He's the same old Looney. Spends way too much time
in the gym, way too much time in the gym,
but Tan gets a lot of sun and he's doing
news radio. If you want to hear I'm Looney on
the weekends. He is a news guy at k A
(14:04):
b C. At one point, k ABC, which is a
news talk station, was the top money making station in
Los Angeles when I first got into radio. It was
after k ABC. It had their glory days and k
f I is the big am talk station and it's
been that way for years, but k ABC back in
(14:24):
the day was where everyone went and that was the
talk station in Los Angeles. Not quite anymore. But Looney
is doing a doing a good job and it's good
to catch up. He does a podcast with JT the
Brick as well, So we were telling some stories there
about the old days. And every time I see Looney
at a baseball game, at some point in the conversation
(14:47):
it has happened. One of the time, the four run
home run will come up. So this goes back to
when we were doing The Blitz, and The Blitz was
a football show, but it was pretty popular and we
had a following for a Sunday afternoon show, and so
management at the time was very supportive of the show.
They eventually grew to hated. Uh well, management changed. The
(15:10):
new management hated it, but the original management loved it,
and so we did the show for a while on
during football and they're like, well, the show is good,
why didn't do baseball? So like, all right, we'll do baseball.
But baseball is a lot different than football. There's football
is pretty easy right Sunday, there's ebbs and flows kind
of updated football game. Baseball is a little harder because
their games are longer and there's more moving parts. And
(15:32):
so anyway, the Red Sox, I still remember it was
a game at Finway, Red Sox or Plan whoever, doesn't matter.
But the Red Sox had a big offensive day and
they had a guy named Jared salt Lemachia, who I
believe still has the record for the longest surname in
(15:54):
Big League history, at least he did at the time.
He did at the time. So anyway, you know, whatever,
So random Sunday in the summertime, and we're updating the scores,
and the Red Sox had a big day, going offensively,
and Jared Saltamakia hits a Grand Slam. Get out the
rye bread and the mustard, Grandma, it's Grand Salami time.
(16:16):
So we got all excited. We got all these monitors,
the games are on it. Anytime something happens, we're like,
we Grand Slam. Except Tom Looney the first person in
the history of radio saying the following words, Jared salta
Lomakia just hit a four run home run, which wall
(16:40):
technically true, Well technically true, is not the proper etiquette,
all right, It's yeah, that was wrong, I mean and Uh, yeah,
you gotta be better than that, right. I know your
name is Looney, and when you're loony, can you have
a little more freedom there? But that was not proper.
(17:01):
So anytime after that someone would hit a grand slam,
which is the professional term that is used. But anytime
someone would do that after either on the air or
off the air, there's a four run home run right there?
Four run home run up? All right, all right, okay,
calm down, I'll move on. So living like Brittany Spears,
(17:26):
what is this all about? Life of Mallard Tales of Woe,
Episode four. Oops, I did it again. I've noticed, and
several of you have pointed out via email that many
of my stories revolve around Costco. And if Costco we're
to go out of business, or if I were to
(17:47):
stop going to Costco, I wouldn't have any stories. So
this story revolves around a couple of things. Now, I
had to get gas. I religiously go to Costco. I
tried to get there early in the morning the gas
because I don't have to wait online. I don't like
waiting online for gas. There's always a long line at Costco.
So if you go in the morning or when it closes,
(18:09):
there's no line, So I got my gas. I actually
happened to go in the evening time, so I did
wait online a little bit, and then I had to
stop by the main store, the big box store, and
you had to get water some snacks. I parked the car. Okay,
just bear with me on this. So I parked the
car and I walk into the front of the store
(18:31):
as you would normally do right this normal night, by myself.
My wife was at home. She's still unpacking. We're gonna
be unpacking things still the way things are going. So
my wife's doing her thing, and I was She's like, hey,
can you run some errands? So I'm like, all right,
I'll run some errands. Why not make myself useful. So
I got the gas. I had to buy some stuff
at Costmas. She text me shopping list. I think that's
(18:55):
pretty normal in a marriage relationship. Somebody sends you a
shopping list. So I'm strolling in and I grab my
Costco credit card and I hold it up to the
young lady at the front there, and as you know,
it's my ticket to enter, It's my golden ticket. So
I'm checking off things on my list right I'm checking off,
and my shopping cart is almost all full of what
(19:17):
I needed. And as I am walking by the meat section,
I still remember where I was. I was looking for
thin cut ribbi because thin cut ribby is the steak
that is used in Philly cheesesteak, and you can buy
it at Costco. It's not cheap. The Costco near where
I live in the north Woods. You can buy this
(19:38):
and it makes amazing Philly cheesesteak. Uh. And it's just
wonderful and everything so thin cut and just melts in
your mouth. It's great. I highly recommended. So then I
had this ah ha moment and it wasn't about the
ribbi sneake, and I'm I'm like, something's not right here,
and I'm like, well, what the hell is going on?
(20:01):
Like what what is it? And so I I'm holding
my phone, so obviously is my phone missing? Uh, you know,
there's no problem with my phone. So I'm like, okay, okay,
what else is going on here? So then I reached
for the keys. I do an inventory here and I
(20:22):
see the keys are there, so there's nothing going on
with the keys, so everything's good. And then I reached
down from my wallet and red light starts, flashing red
light starts. So I had checked on the phone, I
had check on the keys. No wallet, So I put
my hand in my pocket, and for some reason, I
(20:43):
had my Costco credit card that I had used to
get in the store. So now I'm trying to retrace
my steps. I'm thinking, well, I must have dropped my
wallet somewhere in the store. Originally my original thought was,
I you know what might have happened is when I
got gas, I just left the wallet on the passenger
seat in the mallarmobile, and then I just grabbed the
(21:06):
credit card and walked in. For some reason, I thought
I had left it in the front seat of the car.
So what I did was I left a cart full
of food and different things off to the side of
Costco and I go warp speed. I went warp speed.
I ski dattled to the car. I retraced my steps.
I have visions of someone breaking into the car seeing
(21:28):
my my wallet. I have a Castanza wallet, seeing my
wallet there and saying to ching to change change. So
I'm doing the hustle. I'm doing the hustle. I get
out of the store, I go through the parking lot,
I get to my car, and then there's the moment
of truth and I slowly walk up to the car
(21:48):
and I look at the passenger seat through the window.
It's a nighttime situation so that it can't see everything,
and I peek around the side there and I see
right there nothing. I see absolutely nothing, and I'm like,
(22:11):
wait a minute, what the heck am I That had
to and it had to it had to be there,
but no, it wasn't. It wasn't there. So I'm like, okay, Well,
then I opened the door. I thought, well, maybe it
fell out in the area when I got out of
the car and I looked down and I see nothing again.
(22:35):
So now i'mnna starting I start feeling around here. I
started feeling around and trying to figure out what's going on,
and okay, maybe time to the seat. Nothing. So now
at this point I have to do the walk of
shame back to Costco. Maybe I dropped it in the
store somewhere. So again I'm retracing my steps and I'm
(22:58):
looking around. My head is down. I'm depressed. I go
through the parking lot, I get to the door. I
walked through the door and I'm looking around and I'm like,
where is it? Where is my wallet? Where is the
Castanza wallet? I need the wallet? Where is the wallet?
So I'm looking around, looking around, and this the lady
(23:21):
at the door there and the nice woman. She sees
me in a panic, and she says, hey, did you
lose something? And at that point I said, oops, I
did it again, just like my hero Brittney spears, just like,
(23:41):
that's right. And sure enough, my wallet had fallen out
of my pocket at the entrance of Costco. In the
transition when I put the credit card back in my
pocket and it was not in the wallet. The wallet
fell out, the credit card stage in the pocket, and
the lady there, very nice woman, she kept the wallet
(24:04):
in in the little booth thing that she had at
the front of Costco. So this is now the second time,
if you're keeping score at home, that I've told a
similar story. The second time in the last calendar year
that this has happened. Now both times I had a
guardian angel. Last time was at a different grocery store,
this time at Costco, and my wallet got back to me,
(24:28):
and yet again I tried to offer a reward for
finding my wallet. This was very important to me. Right
when you want to pay in the acid is lose
your wallet and when you find your wallet, it's a
big deal. And yet again the woman said, thank you
very much, I can't accept your money. Costco will not
(24:49):
allow me to accept your money. And I said, well, now,
just you know no one's paying attention, they won't know
about I won't tell anybody. And she says, no, I
can't do that. We're not allowed company policy. So I
tell my wife the story. My wife then says that
I should now offer more money. She thinks that's my move.
Now I'm gonna offer more money because I know I've
(25:11):
now had this happen twice where I've lost my wallet,
so she knows I'll lose it again. And she said,
next time this happens, you're gonna offer more money because
you know they can't accept the money. I said, no,
I'm not gonna do that, and I'll tell you what
I told her. I said, I'm not doing that because,
knowing my luck, it's going to turn. I can't continue
(25:31):
to have this kind of good fortune. At some point,
the guardian angel is gonna take a nap, and so
I said no, because Murphy's Law says that the person
I offer a thousand dollars to Will say, you know what,
all right, I'll take the money and can you send
me some duffel bags of cash? Can you do that?
(25:52):
And so so you know, I'm not increasing the dollar amount.
That is not going to happen. Not going to happen,
all right, Moving on now to the Showcase Showdown. If
you listen to these podcasts during the weekend, boy, do
we think that's number one? Tele a friend, tell a
(26:14):
friend you know. On Friday, we typically have someone on
the podcast who we like. We had a close friend
in the radio business on Friday this Friday, I hope
you heard that. And today on Saturday is typically tales
from my life, like losing my wallet at Costco, having
(26:35):
a guy trying to get into a fight with me
because I wasn't wearing a Dodger jersey at a game
and you're not allowed to do that. I didn't want
to go through all that, you know in the media,
as I said, you you gotta dress the part. No
cheering in the press box, blah blah blah blah. So
I had a green shirt on. Guy got upset thought
I was a Celtic fan, which the Clippers on my team,
but the Celtics. As I said, the Laker rivalry over
(26:57):
the years and being a Laker hater, I I do
have a a bit of I don't want to say
green envy, but there's some some joy in there. But
the Sunday Podcast, which is appropbably enough, on Sunday, we
typically just do mail. We answer your questions, and that
will be no different. We'll have the mail bag with
(27:19):
your questions tomorrow. But I wanted to highlight one email
in particular because I want to give it more time
than we have on the mail bag. The mailbags typically
rat a tat tat we go through the mail we
don't have a lot of time. So in this debut,
the maiden voyage of the showcase portion of the Saturday Podcast,
(27:42):
we'll see if we do this more often, if we
get really good email that really you know, you know,
I see really a lot but needs to stand out,
then we'll keep it. And if the reaction to this
is just terrible, and if that's going on, I hear
that noise and I'll be like, all right, there's a
sign I better stop doing this. But this email this
(28:05):
week comes from Hajji. He says that is his Silent
Militia name, Hajji writes, and he says, I love the
Ben Maller Show and I have listened to it as
a podcast every day since I discovered it three years ago.
How great is that? And he says, here's the part
(28:26):
that should make me part of the Silent Mallard Militia. Now,
Haji says, when I am not listening to your most
recent show, I go back to listen to old episodes
that I haven't heard before. He says, I'm currently listening
and working my way through seventeen. I can't believe k
(28:51):
D's leaving the Warriors. Wow, let me stop right there.
He hit the pause button. So Hagi, first of all,
thank you. I appreciate you listening to the show more
than you know. And you are the first listener I
can remember. And maybe it's happened in the past and
I don't remember it. I've blocked it out, but you
(29:11):
are the first person I can recall going back and
listening to dated material. In sports radio, what we do
is time sensitive. There is an expiration date on it.
It does not last. It's not evergreen. If it was evergreen,
music is evergreen. You make a song in your garage
(29:35):
when you're eighteen years old. They're seventeen years old. You're
still playing that song when you're fifty or sixty or
seventy or eighty. Like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles
and the ones that made it, you're still making it.
Sports radio disposable form of entertainment. Whatever the story of
the day is. We talk about and then we move
on and for you to go back and listen. And
(29:58):
I'm surprised those are still aailable, those old podcasts are
still available. I wonder how far back the library of
audio content is. Because I've been at this company. You
could go back and hear early shows that I did
from the early two thousands. I'm pretty confident those do
not exist anymore. Those have been erased from the history books.
(30:21):
But seventeen that's that's a while ago. Now, all right,
that's a while ago. All right. Anyway, says my fifth
hour question. This is from listener Hadji in the showcase,
the email showcase portion of the Saturday podcasts. So he says,
I was wondering if you could talk about the behind
the scenes business of sports talk radio on one of
(30:43):
your podcasts. Well, congratulations, Hodging. This is the podcast. He says,
for example, who decides whether a radio show has a
single host or multiple host such as your show versus
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon. Do the bosses pair the
host up or do the host apply together to do
(31:04):
a show? Let me hit the pause button again. So
the way this works, we all have bosses. I'm no different.
There's a lot of red tape at big radio stations
where are syndicated networks, so there's a lot of management.
There are two main bosses that I deal with, but
there's layers below that that I don't have to deal with.
So the way we do business not to let all
(31:27):
the secrets out, but it's pretty standard. I've worked at
different radio stations, is pretty much the same. The program
director is the one that decides which shows are on
the radio and whether or not that show is a
one man show or two man show, And it really
is preference. Some program directors like the two man show,
some like the one man show. It just depends on it.
(31:51):
And I will tell you that the business is pretty
much shifted to two people at a time. I am
one of the few guys that just as a solo act.
There's a few, but you know, you look at our
our station, our network, Fox, Colin Cowards a one man act,
but he's got you know, he's got a lot of
help on that. Dan Patrick technically a one man show,
(32:13):
but the dan Ets so not a one man show.
Morning show. Our morning show has a lot of a
lot of people, right. Jonas has got a couple of
guys with him that former NFL players and in LaVar
Arrington and Quinn. So they do that and then you
go through the rest of the day and you've got
(32:33):
Rob Parker, know what, Gottlie does a solo show, but
he has a lot of people around him, uh that
help out. And so so it's it's each time slot
is its own entity. And there are radio shows that
work together and change stations together. It is much more
difficult to do that. It's much more difficult. I gave
(32:58):
I was not I did give the US. I was
given some great advice from Rick D's. You might not
know who Ricky's is. He was a big fin deal
in the radio business. When I got started. Ricky's had
the number one morning show at Kiss FM one or
two point seven Kiss FM, The D's sleeves in the morning.
Rick dominated morning drive radio and made a fortune. He
(33:22):
had a syndicated television show. He did the weekly Top
forty Countdown. He was a big deal in the radio business.
And Rick was the one of the nicest people I've
ever met. And I was a young guy, had worked
in San Diego. I got transferred to the l A station.
They were just starting Kiss Am, which became Extra Sports
(33:42):
eleven fifty which is now the Patriot, and the sports
station moved over to a M five seventy in the
l A market. Anyway, I was doing the midday show.
Believe it or not, I was Midday Mallard. The Ben
and Dave show was on midday's and so anyway DS
would come in. He was recording his Top forty show
or other content for the morning show, and he would
(34:03):
come in and just drop by and smile and say
hello and ask how we were doing. And occasionally he
would drop some wisdom. And there was one point we
were not sure whether our show would make it or not,
and I asked Rick these some career advice. And Rick
knew that it was a two man operation, and he said,
he said, listen, I'm sure you like working with with Dave.
(34:24):
Who you're with this is a guy named Dave Smith.
And I'm sure Dave you like working with Ben. But
my experience, and this is a guy at the very
top at the time in the radio business, was that
if you're looking for a job, he said, it's better
flying solo, because it's hard enough to get one job
in radio, but to get a program director to hire
two people, good luck, good luck on that. Uh And
(34:50):
and how back to the email, he says, how do
they decide the time slot for a show? Well, again,
there's a pecking order. It's the program director along with
a group of people called consultants, and they all get
together and I don't know what they do, but they
throw darts and they figure out who goes where. It's
(35:11):
a big puzzle board. It's putting jigsaw puzzle pieces onto
a puzzle and putting them all together and making it work.
And he also says, does the time slot come first
and then they pick a show or do they pick
the show first and then decide the time slot. Yeah,
So the way this works is it's the show that
(35:32):
fits the time slot. It's not the other way around.
They don't just hire talk shows and then say they
go in the time slot. It's what show is appropriate
for the time slot, and it's tilted. For example, the
way the radio business works, you matter if you're on
six am to six pm. That's when most people listen
(35:52):
to the radio, six am to six pm. That includes
morning drive, midday, afternoon drive. Any time after that, you
are marginalized. You're not that important to people in radio.
You're just not. And I love my job, and I
have a lot of great things about the job. I
(36:13):
don't have too much traffic. Of course, now I'm doing
the show from home, so I have no traffic most
of the time unless the rare and appropriate time that
I come in to the studio, so I've got the
radio show from home. I don't deal with the bosses
very much because when they're at work, I'm sleeping, so
I don't have to deal with that. But financially, they
(36:34):
don't pay the overnight guy as much as the daytime people.
And so there is a give and take with anything
in life, within any of your life. Also, Haji says,
how do they decide to replace the show when the
host leaves like Clay Travis without kick and two pros
(36:55):
and a cup of Joe. So again, it's it is
a collaborative effort. It is decided by the programming people
at our company. At Fox Sports Radio, Don Martin and
Scott Shapiro are the top two guys, and then they
have people around them. They have bosses themselves they have
to deal with They have a bunch of red tape
(37:15):
with consultants and everyone's chiming in. They have to worry
about what show can they sell, what will make the
most money for the company. I mean, how much money
is the show going to cost. There's a lot of
moving parts, a lot of spinning plates with that, as
you might imagine, any job has these type of things.
He also says, are there auditions behind the scene. Yes, absolutely,
(37:40):
there are people that, do you know, send in tapes
not tapes anymore, it's digital stuff. And there are also
some dry runs where they'll put so and so in
a studio with somebody else who they think will sound good,
and they will throw them together and see if the
show clicks, see if there's some kind of audio match,
(38:01):
and decide at that point, and it is the boss's
decision there. He says, is there a pecking order set
ahead of time? Next host up? Not always? Not always.
I was the bride's maid. For many years, I did
weekend overnights. I was next in line for a day
(38:22):
part and it did not happen for nine years. Over
nine years, I did weekend overnights before I finally got
the weekday show. And then I got whacked from that
job after a year and then brought back six months
in twenty six days later. And Hog also says, but
(38:42):
you're going in depth here on this email. He says,
how do radio contracts work, Well, it really depends on
the host, It depends on the station, the format. So
there's a lot of variables with the radio contract. Typically
they are anywhere from one to three year contracts. There's
usually a lot of offset language in the contracts. I
(39:05):
can't give that information out because I'd be violating my contract.
But with any contract, there's a lot of fine print
at the bottom that typically protects the employee er and
not the employee as much. That's just how most businesses work,
and so that's that's not a surprise. He also says,
how long are they as I said, one to three years?
(39:29):
And how do they handle time off? Do you get
paid time off? He says, wow, look at this, do
they have buyouts in other ways to end them early.
And again it depends on the contract. I do get
paid time off. I do not take most of my
time off. I don't do that. And the reason I
don't do that two reasons. I'm a workaholic. That's one reason.
(39:53):
The second reason. The key to to audience retention in
radio is being there and my experience from being in
the business. And I tell people who ask me this
young broadcasters who are the next generation, I can't believe
I'm saying that, but I tell people who are interested
in the business, I say, the key to this is
(40:14):
being like a sofa. You have to be the sofa.
Now what do I mean by that? Let me explain.
So the sofa is there when you need it. It's
also there when you don't need it. But if you
go into a room and you want to sit on
the sofa and there's no sofa there, and maybe there's
a shitty chair, you're not gonna like that. And that's
(40:38):
the way radio is. Radio and the person If you
like a show, and and that's a big thing that
gets somebody to like you, you know how hard that is.
You have so many freaking options to listen to and
to listen to my fat ass. And so the way
I look at this, you gotta be there. You gotta
be the sofa. You might not listen to me. Maybe
(41:00):
you only work a couple of days a week, and
I'm there every night. I got the weekend podcast. But
I gotta be there when you need me. That's the
way I look at that. And maybe I'm wrong and
I'm dumb and all that. My wife tells me I
should take take a hell of a lot more time off,
and I do have some family events that I will
be taking some time off for, but I try to
(41:20):
make it rare and appropriate. Again, one of a praise
the phrases I use a lot. But it's very important
to be there. And that's how you keep an audience,
and that's how you keep people engaged and you keep
people interested. And if you're not there, there's there's a
line Jim Rome had and Jim's a legend in the business.
And I'm not mocking Jim, but Jim is legendary for
(41:41):
taking a lot of vacation time as well. And he
used to say, well, I take a lot of vacation
because I get a lot of vacation and that's true.
I get a lot of vacation to considering the backbreaking
work of having to talk for a living, but it
feels more are important to be there. I don't even
(42:02):
like taking time off over the holidays. I typically save.
I have to take a certain number of days every year,
so I typically save that till the week between Christmas
and New Year's and that's that's standard when I take
my time up. Anyway, we've gone very very long here,
very long, bad job by me, So I will now,
all right, I calm down, I will do that right now,
(42:26):
and I hope you've enjoyed this. And uh wow, nice,
I understand. And nobody called up. Not a single person
called up and said that, so we didn't have to
deal with that at all. Have a wonderful rest of
your Saturday. If you're interested in cameo, I am on
cameo dot com. Did another cameo this week. Had a
(42:48):
great time with that. And if you'd like to have
a personalized message for you, a Mallard monologue dedicated to you,
then please contact me on cameo. It's not free, but
it's not that much. There's people charging a lot more
than me. Most people are charging more than me, but
check it out and we'd love to do it for you.
(43:11):
And don't forget the mail bag on Sundays Sunday Sunday
and we'll catch you next time. Aloha,
Ka boom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes
a week was enough, I think again. He's the last
remnants of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness.
He treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as
the rich pill poppers in the penthouse, to clearing house
of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth
(00:23):
Hour with Ben Maller starts right now. Shadow boxing. Well
come man, the beginning of another edition of the Fifth
Hour with Ben Maller. A heavy weight brew ha ha
as I shadow box myself, flying solo yet again. I
(00:45):
don't need no sticking sidekick. No no, no, no, no
anyway coming up on this edition of The Fifth Hour,
a spinoff of the Ben Maller radio show, only available
in the podcast format and broadcasting from a secret location,
a special podcast studio deep in the north Woods. As
(01:07):
we get you started on a Saturday, we have the
Green Team, The Green Team living like Brittney Spears and
showcase what is that all about? You'll find out that
and a whole lot more. Hold your applause, no need
to clap, but we'll get the party started right now.
(01:27):
And we promised the Green Team, so I came close
to having to turn to fist the cuffs at Chavez Ravina. Now,
if you've been listening to the radio show all week,
you know that I was very fortunate enough. I got
to spend some quality time at one of my five
favorite places to hang out, a Major League baseball stadium,
(01:49):
in particular, Dodger Stadium, where I've spent much of my
life watching athletic competition. Now the Dodgers in the Atlanta
Braves meeting in the National League Championship Series, and what
a madhouse that me tell you, this was a madhouse
this week. And I'll take you back to Game three
of the analycs one of the highlights for the Dayers
(02:13):
and I I had snack bar drama. I had snack
bar drama. So I mentioned this on the radio show.
But the great thing about the podcast is we have
plenty of time to dive deep into a story and
there is a lot to tell. This might seem like
a simple story guy online at a snack bar to
(02:35):
get some delicious treats, but it's much more than that.
So I will give you the non condensed version of
what happened. And if you're bored by stories like this,
then just fast forward, no harm, no foul. But I'm
might need my own business now. I'm waiting online, and
there were a bunch of people that were consuming massive
amounts of alcohol Bruskies, and that's what you do at
(02:59):
a in the event, but not me. I'm working, right,
I'm working, Benny, and I got my little press pass on,
so I'm you know, I'll let you know a little
inside radio. We're friends. Why not. If you're listening to
this podcast, you are a higher level in the Mallem militias.
So if you are in the media and you cover
one of these playoff games, what Major League Baseball does
(03:23):
is they give you a food voucher. In this case,
and I don't know how it is in every city,
but in Los Angeles they give you a fifteen dollar
food voucher. So Major League Baseball in the old days,
they used to supply a full boxed meal. But that
costs too much money. And the people in charge, the billionaires,
(03:45):
the aristocrats at Major League Baseball, We're like, oh, what
are we doing here? Why are we spending all this
money on apples and turkey sandwiches and bags of chips.
That's a waste of money. So why don't we just
hand these these people fifteen dollars and it's like a
food stamps ticket. Okay, so fifteen dollars, now that sounds
like a decent amount of money. At least when I
(04:06):
was a kid, fifteen bucks was pretty good. As you know,
if you attend sporting events in any city, it doesn't
matter whether you're in Los Angeles or not. That doesn't
get very far. It does not get very far. And
no discount. By the way, everything's marked up. It's not
like they have a special rate, like an insider rate.
And the one thing that professional sports has mastered more
than anything else price gouging personified. Right, it is insane.
(04:31):
You can take a drink which is some syrup and
some water, maybe a little ice, which is just frozen
water and some sugar and whatnot, and that costs the
people that make the drink, you know, maybe ten cents,
twenty cents, thirty cents, whatever it is, fifty cents you
(04:52):
want to go high, and we'll charge four bucks for
that bottle of water, right, bottle of water. You can
get a whole case of water at Costco for a
very reasonable amount, but at a ballpark, five bucks ten bucks.
You want to a little souvenir batting helmet filled with
garlic fries, that'll set you back like fifteen sixteen bucks
(05:13):
something like that. So, um, the way this works the
food stamp let you again behind the curtain, how we
make the hotdogs. So you are giving a food voucher,
you have to spend it or lose it. No cash back.
So if your order comes to eight dollars, you don't
get the rest of that, and you can't reuse that
(05:34):
somewhere else. It's one shot, shoot your shot, and that's it. Now,
what I have done over the years that I have mastered,
I look at the menu. I've mastered how to get
the most I can possibly get without going over. And
I have scouted the different snack bars at Dodger Stadium,
(05:56):
and it changes every year because of the cost of
all this another, prices have gone up over the years,
and the Dodgers seemingly in the playoffs every year. So
I've had to deal with this for for a long time.
So what I have settled on my order is not one,
but two soft pretzels and a plastic cup, small plastic
(06:17):
cup of nacho cheese, not your cheese. Is my cheese.
So that sets me back a grand total of thirteen
dollars and nineties six cents. I believe with tax is
how much that costs. So that's as close as I
have been able to get to the full fifteen dollar
(06:39):
amount without getting over. One time they charged me for
two cheese cups and that put me over at sixteen
dollars and said, I said, I only want one. Take
back your little cheese cup. I don't want that. But
I do love soft pretzels. It's one of my guilty pleasures,
a well made soft pretzel. And I will tell you
they do not have great soft pretzels at Dodgers Stadium.
(07:00):
They don't. I've had much better pretzels at in in Boston,
in New York, Philadelphia, which is the mecca, as our
guy Fats in Philly tells us, the birthplace of the pretzel,
the soft pretzel, and we also had the late Philly
Rob who was a pretzel benefactor as well. But that's
that's the gold standard. I love those big pretzels, and
(07:23):
they've gotta be soft. You know the problem I've had,
it's hit and miss. At Dodger Stadium, the pretzels sometimes
they leave them in those little rotating things and they
are like rocks, and that sucks and you can't return it, right,
you know, there's no returns, so you're it's it's whatever.
It's Russian Roulette with the pretzels. But I do the
(07:45):
other presils now, regardless of I get to the point. Please.
So I'm online. I'm minding my peas and cues. BOYD,
did I get sidetracked? So I'm minding my pas and
cues and people are ordering alcohol whatever. They're ordering hot dogs,
you know it, garlic fries, and some drunk dude and
his buddy start and going on, you know, going off
(08:08):
on me. They start harassing me. They're all over me
for not wearing the proper wardrobe that I did not
have the Dodger gear. And I am surrounded in a
sea of people in Dodger blue. And there were a
few Atlanta Brave fans, but not many, not many. And
I have a feeling there were some Braves fans that
didn't wear their colors because they heard the reputation of
(08:31):
the parking lots at Dodger stating. So I had a
green shirt on, I had my newsboy hat, which is
what I usually wear when I go out to cover
my receding hairline. So and then and then I, you know,
it's doing my thing, waiting online to get my soft
pretzels and my cup of cheese. And this one dude
was enraged and became engaged with me. Again, I'm just
(08:58):
right there, and this guy is getting on. He's like, well,
you know, Dodger fan, were your colors? Man? Why didn't
you wear your colors right? And I'm like, well, I'm just,
you know, waiting for my food. I tried. I tried
to not respond, but the guy that got right in
my face, and I'm like, all right, you know, I
just I just want to get and and I didn't say, hey,
I'm in the media. I'm better than you. But I
(09:19):
had a media pass and it said media on it.
So the fact that I didn't really respond to the
guy and just kind of blew them off that upset
him more. So. Now this is an escalation situation. So
now the guy's like, wait a minute, you're wearing green.
Are you a Celtic fan? He asked me if I'm
a Celtic fan. And at this point I'm like, well,
(09:42):
should I tell him that I've done radio in Boston
for you know, over the years, off and on, and
I actually own a Celtics hat, and as a Laker hater,
I have great pride of the Celtics because the Celtics
have caused a lot of agony to my friends who
are Laker fans, not really recently, but over the years historically.
And so I was like, probably not best for me
(10:04):
to bring that up, So I shouldn't say that rare
and appropriate you bring that up at Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately,
about the time that this is starting, the skyrocket and
tensions are being ratcheted up. I was able to squeeze
to the front of the line and these bozos skidaddled.
(10:25):
They got a guy on their way and it was
their lucky day. By the way, let me tell you.
You might think I'm just a fat, middle aged overnight
talk your host, but I would have introduced them to
my little friends. I have an alter ego. I don't
talk about it very much. Do not endorse violence, but
(10:45):
when needed, you can call me Benny Bloody Knuckles. Benny
Bloody Knuckles, you can call me that. It's true. Listen,
I'm a pretty mellow guy. I like to goof around,
have a good time. But I build up like a
volcano and hot molten lava goes flying when I become enraged.
(11:08):
That's how That's how I wrote. There's some people that
are mad all the time and just blow offs team
I don't. I don't do that regularly. I just every
once in a while. That's just how how it goes.
You know what I'm saying there. But as far as
the Dodger Games, it was great to see my old friends,
as I always say, And Roberto is there who I
don't see all the time. I'm in the home studio
(11:29):
a lot lead a Lap the producer of the morning show.
He was on hand. I know a lot of the
older crowd that used to when I was in the
back in the day. They be the ushers at Dodgers
Dad and a few of those people left lifers at
Dodger Stadium. So I was able to come across some
of those people and it was a good time, a
good time and just being at the ballpark and the
(11:50):
Oregon and that that that that that that that that
that that that that that that that that that that
I ran into Tom Looney. Tom Looney, he's the news
guy now my old partner Louis, we've had Looney on
the podcast, and the Looney who gave me the single
(12:14):
worst piece of financial advice that I have ever gotten
in my life came from Tom Loony. I don't need
to go into the story right now. I had saved
up my money for a long time. I'll give you
the condensed version. I'd saved up my money for a
long time. And I was debating. There was a place
a condo I was looking at in in downtown l A.
(12:36):
And I was like, I don't know if this is
the right spot. It's in the crappy neighborhoods in Lincoln Heights.
And Looney's like, well, they're gonna fix it up, and
and I told him, I said, well, I keep reading
in the business papers that the housing market is going
to go down. And Looney gave me this big pep
talk and he's like, no, no, no, no, no no, now,
so don't worry about that. You know, they're always gonna
(12:56):
say this kind of thing. If you find a place
you like, just get it, you know. He was trying
to tell me it was a way to go. And
so I purchased a house and a couple of months
after I purchased the house. Yeah, Call Boom goes to
the housing market, and it was nice to see Loony.
(13:19):
That is the first time I have seen Tom Looney
in person. And we used to work together every weekend
for years. For seven years, I think we did that
show on the weekends. I can't believe it lasted that long.
If you ever heard, if you ever heard the show,
then you would know that show was not long for
the world. But eventually that yeah, that did happen at
(13:42):
the end, Eventually that that took place. Anyway, I caught
up with Loony, hadn't seen him since the COVID thing started.
He's the same old Looney. Spends way too much time
in the gym, way too much time in the gym,
but Tan gets a lot of sun and he's doing
news radio. If you want to hear I'm Looney on
the weekends. He is a news guy at k A
(14:04):
b C. At one point, k ABC, which is a
news talk station, was the top money making station in
Los Angeles when I first got into radio. It was
after k ABC. It had their glory days and k
f I is the big am talk station and it's
been that way for years, but k ABC back in
(14:24):
the day was where everyone went and that was the
talk station in Los Angeles. Not quite anymore. But Looney
is doing a doing a good job and it's good
to catch up. He does a podcast with JT the
Brick as well, So we were telling some stories there
about the old days. And every time I see Looney
at a baseball game, at some point in the conversation
(14:47):
it has happened. One of the time, the four run
home run will come up. So this goes back to
when we were doing The Blitz, and The Blitz was
a football show, but it was pretty popular and we
had a following for a Sunday afternoon show, and so
management at the time was very supportive of the show.
They eventually grew to hated. Uh well, management changed. The
(15:10):
new management hated it, but the original management loved it,
and so we did the show for a while on
during football and they're like, well, the show is good,
why didn't do baseball? So like, all right, we'll do baseball.
But baseball is a lot different than football. There's football
is pretty easy right Sunday, there's ebbs and flows kind
of updated football game. Baseball is a little harder because
their games are longer and there's more moving parts. And
(15:32):
so anyway, the Red Sox, I still remember it was
a game at Finway, Red Sox or Plan whoever, doesn't matter.
But the Red Sox had a big offensive day and
they had a guy named Jared salt Lemachia, who I
believe still has the record for the longest surname in
(15:54):
Big League history, at least he did at the time.
He did at the time. So anyway, you know, whatever,
So random Sunday in the summertime, and we're updating the scores,
and the Red Sox had a big day, going offensively,
and Jared Saltamakia hits a Grand Slam. Get out the
rye bread and the mustard, Grandma, it's Grand Salami time.
(16:16):
So we got all excited. We got all these monitors,
the games are on it. Anytime something happens, we're like,
we Grand Slam. Except Tom Looney the first person in
the history of radio saying the following words, Jared salta
Lomakia just hit a four run home run, which wall
(16:40):
technically true, Well technically true, is not the proper etiquette,
all right, It's yeah, that was wrong, I mean and Uh, yeah,
you gotta be better than that, right. I know your
name is Looney, and when you're loony, can you have
a little more freedom there? But that was not proper.
(17:01):
So anytime after that someone would hit a grand slam,
which is the professional term that is used. But anytime
someone would do that after either on the air or
off the air, there's a four run home run right there?
Four run home run up? All right, all right, okay,
calm down, I'll move on. So living like Brittany Spears,
(17:26):
what is this all about? Life of Mallard Tales of Woe,
Episode four. Oops, I did it again. I've noticed, and
several of you have pointed out via email that many
of my stories revolve around Costco. And if Costco we're
to go out of business, or if I were to
(17:47):
stop going to Costco, I wouldn't have any stories. So
this story revolves around a couple of things. Now, I
had to get gas. I religiously go to Costco. I
tried to get there early in the morning the gas
because I don't have to wait online. I don't like
waiting online for gas. There's always a long line at Costco.
So if you go in the morning or when it closes,
(18:09):
there's no line, So I got my gas. I actually
happened to go in the evening time, so I did
wait online a little bit, and then I had to
stop by the main store, the big box store, and
you had to get water some snacks. I parked the car. Okay,
just bear with me on this. So I parked the
car and I walk into the front of the store
(18:31):
as you would normally do right this normal night, by myself.
My wife was at home. She's still unpacking. We're gonna
be unpacking things still the way things are going. So
my wife's doing her thing, and I was She's like, hey,
can you run some errands? So I'm like, all right,
I'll run some errands. Why not make myself useful. So
I got the gas. I had to buy some stuff
at Costmas. She text me shopping list. I think that's
(18:55):
pretty normal in a marriage relationship. Somebody sends you a
shopping list. So I'm strolling in and I grab my
Costco credit card and I hold it up to the
young lady at the front there, and as you know,
it's my ticket to enter, It's my golden ticket. So
I'm checking off things on my list right I'm checking off,
and my shopping cart is almost all full of what
(19:17):
I needed. And as I am walking by the meat section,
I still remember where I was. I was looking for
thin cut ribbi because thin cut ribby is the steak
that is used in Philly cheesesteak, and you can buy
it at Costco. It's not cheap. The Costco near where
I live in the north Woods. You can buy this
(19:38):
and it makes amazing Philly cheesesteak. Uh. And it's just
wonderful and everything so thin cut and just melts in
your mouth. It's great. I highly recommended. So then I
had this ah ha moment and it wasn't about the
ribbi sneake, and I'm I'm like, something's not right here,
and I'm like, well, what the hell is going on?
(20:01):
Like what what is it? And so I I'm holding
my phone, so obviously is my phone missing? Uh, you know,
there's no problem with my phone. So I'm like, okay, okay,
what else is going on here? So then I reached
for the keys. I do an inventory here and I
(20:22):
see the keys are there, so there's nothing going on
with the keys, so everything's good. And then I reached
down from my wallet and red light starts, flashing red
light starts. So I had checked on the phone, I
had check on the keys. No wallet, So I put
my hand in my pocket, and for some reason, I
(20:43):
had my Costco credit card that I had used to
get in the store. So now I'm trying to retrace
my steps. I'm thinking, well, I must have dropped my
wallet somewhere in the store. Originally my original thought was,
I you know what might have happened is when I
got gas, I just left the wallet on the passenger
seat in the mallarmobile, and then I just grabbed the
(21:06):
credit card and walked in. For some reason, I thought
I had left it in the front seat of the car.
So what I did was I left a cart full
of food and different things off to the side of
Costco and I go warp speed. I went warp speed.
I ski dattled to the car. I retraced my steps.
I have visions of someone breaking into the car seeing
(21:28):
my my wallet. I have a Castanza wallet, seeing my
wallet there and saying to ching to change change. So
I'm doing the hustle. I'm doing the hustle. I get
out of the store, I go through the parking lot,
I get to my car, and then there's the moment
of truth and I slowly walk up to the car
(21:48):
and I look at the passenger seat through the window.
It's a nighttime situation so that it can't see everything,
and I peek around the side there and I see
right there nothing. I see absolutely nothing, and I'm like,
(22:11):
wait a minute, what the heck am I That had
to and it had to it had to be there,
but no, it wasn't. It wasn't there. So I'm like, okay, Well,
then I opened the door. I thought, well, maybe it
fell out in the area when I got out of
the car and I looked down and I see nothing again.
(22:35):
So now i'mnna starting I start feeling around here. I
started feeling around and trying to figure out what's going on,
and okay, maybe time to the seat. Nothing. So now
at this point I have to do the walk of
shame back to Costco. Maybe I dropped it in the
store somewhere. So again I'm retracing my steps and I'm
(22:58):
looking around. My head is down. I'm depressed. I go
through the parking lot, I get to the door. I
walked through the door and I'm looking around and I'm like,
where is it? Where is my wallet? Where is the
Castanza wallet? I need the wallet? Where is the wallet?
So I'm looking around, looking around, and this the lady
(23:21):
at the door there and the nice woman. She sees
me in a panic, and she says, hey, did you
lose something? And at that point I said, oops, I
did it again, just like my hero Brittney spears, just like,
(23:41):
that's right. And sure enough, my wallet had fallen out
of my pocket at the entrance of Costco. In the
transition when I put the credit card back in my
pocket and it was not in the wallet. The wallet
fell out, the credit card stage in the pocket, and
the lady there, very nice woman, she kept the wallet
(24:04):
in in the little booth thing that she had at
the front of Costco. So this is now the second time,
if you're keeping score at home, that I've told a
similar story. The second time in the last calendar year
that this has happened. Now both times I had a
guardian angel. Last time was at a different grocery store,
this time at Costco, and my wallet got back to me,
(24:28):
and yet again I tried to offer a reward for
finding my wallet. This was very important to me. Right
when you want to pay in the acid is lose
your wallet and when you find your wallet, it's a
big deal. And yet again the woman said, thank you
very much, I can't accept your money. Costco will not
(24:49):
allow me to accept your money. And I said, well, now,
just you know no one's paying attention, they won't know
about I won't tell anybody. And she says, no, I
can't do that. We're not allowed company policy. So I
tell my wife the story. My wife then says that
I should now offer more money. She thinks that's my move.
Now I'm gonna offer more money because I know I've
(25:11):
now had this happen twice where I've lost my wallet,
so she knows I'll lose it again. And she said,
next time this happens, you're gonna offer more money because
you know they can't accept the money. I said, no,
I'm not gonna do that, and I'll tell you what
I told her. I said, I'm not doing that because,
knowing my luck, it's going to turn. I can't continue
(25:31):
to have this kind of good fortune. At some point,
the guardian angel is gonna take a nap, and so
I said no, because Murphy's Law says that the person
I offer a thousand dollars to Will say, you know what,
all right, I'll take the money and can you send
me some duffel bags of cash? Can you do that?
(25:52):
And so so you know, I'm not increasing the dollar amount.
That is not going to happen. Not going to happen,
all right, Moving on now to the Showcase Showdown. If
you listen to these podcasts during the weekend, boy, do
we think that's number one? Tele a friend, tell a
(26:14):
friend you know. On Friday, we typically have someone on
the podcast who we like. We had a close friend
in the radio business on Friday this Friday, I hope
you heard that. And today on Saturday is typically tales
from my life, like losing my wallet at Costco, having
(26:35):
a guy trying to get into a fight with me
because I wasn't wearing a Dodger jersey at a game
and you're not allowed to do that. I didn't want
to go through all that, you know in the media,
as I said, you you gotta dress the part. No
cheering in the press box, blah blah blah blah. So
I had a green shirt on. Guy got upset thought
I was a Celtic fan, which the Clippers on my team,
but the Celtics. As I said, the Laker rivalry over
(26:57):
the years and being a Laker hater, I I do
have a a bit of I don't want to say
green envy, but there's some some joy in there. But
the Sunday Podcast, which is appropbably enough, on Sunday, we
typically just do mail. We answer your questions, and that
will be no different. We'll have the mail bag with
(27:19):
your questions tomorrow. But I wanted to highlight one email
in particular because I want to give it more time
than we have on the mail bag. The mailbags typically
rat a tat tat we go through the mail we
don't have a lot of time. So in this debut,
the maiden voyage of the showcase portion of the Saturday Podcast,
(27:42):
we'll see if we do this more often, if we
get really good email that really you know, you know,
I see really a lot but needs to stand out,
then we'll keep it. And if the reaction to this
is just terrible, and if that's going on, I hear
that noise and I'll be like, all right, there's a
sign I better stop doing this. But this email this
(28:05):
week comes from Hajji. He says that is his Silent
Militia name, Hajji writes, and he says, I love the
Ben Maller Show and I have listened to it as
a podcast every day since I discovered it three years ago.
How great is that? And he says, here's the part
(28:26):
that should make me part of the Silent Mallard Militia. Now,
Haji says, when I am not listening to your most
recent show, I go back to listen to old episodes
that I haven't heard before. He says, I'm currently listening
and working my way through seventeen. I can't believe k
(28:51):
D's leaving the Warriors. Wow, let me stop right there.
He hit the pause button. So Hagi, first of all,
thank you. I appreciate you listening to the show more
than you know. And you are the first listener I
can remember. And maybe it's happened in the past and
I don't remember it. I've blocked it out, but you
(29:11):
are the first person I can recall going back and
listening to dated material. In sports radio, what we do
is time sensitive. There is an expiration date on it.
It does not last. It's not evergreen. If it was evergreen,
music is evergreen. You make a song in your garage
(29:35):
when you're eighteen years old. They're seventeen years old. You're
still playing that song when you're fifty or sixty or
seventy or eighty. Like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles
and the ones that made it, you're still making it.
Sports radio disposable form of entertainment. Whatever the story of
the day is. We talk about and then we move
on and for you to go back and listen. And
(29:58):
I'm surprised those are still aailable, those old podcasts are
still available. I wonder how far back the library of
audio content is. Because I've been at this company. You
could go back and hear early shows that I did
from the early two thousands. I'm pretty confident those do
not exist anymore. Those have been erased from the history books.
(30:21):
But seventeen that's that's a while ago. Now, all right,
that's a while ago. All right. Anyway, says my fifth
hour question. This is from listener Hadji in the showcase,
the email showcase portion of the Saturday podcasts. So he says,
I was wondering if you could talk about the behind
the scenes business of sports talk radio on one of
(30:43):
your podcasts. Well, congratulations, Hodging. This is the podcast. He says,
for example, who decides whether a radio show has a
single host or multiple host such as your show versus
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon. Do the bosses pair the
host up or do the host apply together to do
(31:04):
a show? Let me hit the pause button again. So
the way this works, we all have bosses. I'm no different.
There's a lot of red tape at big radio stations
where are syndicated networks, so there's a lot of management.
There are two main bosses that I deal with, but
there's layers below that that I don't have to deal with.
So the way we do business not to let all
(31:27):
the secrets out, but it's pretty standard. I've worked at
different radio stations, is pretty much the same. The program
director is the one that decides which shows are on
the radio and whether or not that show is a
one man show or two man show, And it really
is preference. Some program directors like the two man show,
some like the one man show. It just depends on it.
(31:51):
And I will tell you that the business is pretty
much shifted to two people at a time. I am
one of the few guys that just as a solo act.
There's a few, but you know, you look at our
our station, our network, Fox, Colin Cowards a one man act,
but he's got you know, he's got a lot of
help on that. Dan Patrick technically a one man show,
(32:13):
but the dan Ets so not a one man show.
Morning show. Our morning show has a lot of a
lot of people, right. Jonas has got a couple of
guys with him that former NFL players and in LaVar
Arrington and Quinn. So they do that and then you
go through the rest of the day and you've got
(32:33):
Rob Parker, know what, Gottlie does a solo show, but
he has a lot of people around him, uh that
help out. And so so it's it's each time slot
is its own entity. And there are radio shows that
work together and change stations together. It is much more
difficult to do that. It's much more difficult. I gave
(32:58):
I was not I did give the US. I was
given some great advice from Rick D's. You might not
know who Ricky's is. He was a big fin deal
in the radio business. When I got started. Ricky's had
the number one morning show at Kiss FM one or
two point seven Kiss FM, The D's sleeves in the morning.
Rick dominated morning drive radio and made a fortune. He
(33:22):
had a syndicated television show. He did the weekly Top
forty Countdown. He was a big deal in the radio business.
And Rick was the one of the nicest people I've
ever met. And I was a young guy, had worked
in San Diego. I got transferred to the l A station.
They were just starting Kiss Am, which became Extra Sports
(33:42):
eleven fifty which is now the Patriot, and the sports
station moved over to a M five seventy in the
l A market. Anyway, I was doing the midday show.
Believe it or not, I was Midday Mallard. The Ben
and Dave show was on midday's and so anyway DS
would come in. He was recording his Top forty show
or other content for the morning show, and he would
(34:03):
come in and just drop by and smile and say
hello and ask how we were doing. And occasionally he
would drop some wisdom. And there was one point we
were not sure whether our show would make it or not,
and I asked Rick these some career advice. And Rick
knew that it was a two man operation, and he said,
he said, listen, I'm sure you like working with with Dave.
(34:24):
Who you're with this is a guy named Dave Smith.
And I'm sure Dave you like working with Ben. But
my experience, and this is a guy at the very
top at the time in the radio business, was that
if you're looking for a job, he said, it's better
flying solo, because it's hard enough to get one job
in radio, but to get a program director to hire
two people, good luck, good luck on that. Uh And
(34:50):
and how back to the email, he says, how do
they decide the time slot for a show? Well, again,
there's a pecking order. It's the program director along with
a group of people called consultants, and they all get
together and I don't know what they do, but they
throw darts and they figure out who goes where. It's
(35:11):
a big puzzle board. It's putting jigsaw puzzle pieces onto
a puzzle and putting them all together and making it work.
And he also says, does the time slot come first
and then they pick a show or do they pick
the show first and then decide the time slot. Yeah,
So the way this works is it's the show that
(35:32):
fits the time slot. It's not the other way around.
They don't just hire talk shows and then say they
go in the time slot. It's what show is appropriate
for the time slot, and it's tilted. For example, the
way the radio business works, you matter if you're on
six am to six pm. That's when most people listen
(35:52):
to the radio, six am to six pm. That includes
morning drive, midday, afternoon drive. Any time after that, you
are marginalized. You're not that important to people in radio.
You're just not. And I love my job, and I
have a lot of great things about the job. I
(36:13):
don't have too much traffic. Of course, now I'm doing
the show from home, so I have no traffic most
of the time unless the rare and appropriate time that
I come in to the studio, so I've got the
radio show from home. I don't deal with the bosses
very much because when they're at work, I'm sleeping, so
I don't have to deal with that. But financially, they
(36:34):
don't pay the overnight guy as much as the daytime people.
And so there is a give and take with anything
in life, within any of your life. Also, Haji says,
how do they decide to replace the show when the
host leaves like Clay Travis without kick and two pros
(36:55):
and a cup of Joe. So again, it's it is
a collaborative effort. It is decided by the programming people
at our company. At Fox Sports Radio, Don Martin and
Scott Shapiro are the top two guys, and then they
have people around them. They have bosses themselves they have
to deal with They have a bunch of red tape
(37:15):
with consultants and everyone's chiming in. They have to worry
about what show can they sell, what will make the
most money for the company. I mean, how much money
is the show going to cost. There's a lot of
moving parts, a lot of spinning plates with that, as
you might imagine, any job has these type of things.
He also says, are there auditions behind the scene. Yes, absolutely,
(37:40):
there are people that, do you know, send in tapes
not tapes anymore, it's digital stuff. And there are also
some dry runs where they'll put so and so in
a studio with somebody else who they think will sound good,
and they will throw them together and see if the
show clicks, see if there's some kind of audio match,
(38:01):
and decide at that point, and it is the boss's
decision there. He says, is there a pecking order set
ahead of time? Next host up? Not always? Not always.
I was the bride's maid. For many years, I did
weekend overnights. I was next in line for a day
(38:22):
part and it did not happen for nine years. Over
nine years, I did weekend overnights before I finally got
the weekday show. And then I got whacked from that
job after a year and then brought back six months
in twenty six days later. And Hog also says, but
(38:42):
you're going in depth here on this email. He says,
how do radio contracts work, Well, it really depends on
the host, It depends on the station, the format. So
there's a lot of variables with the radio contract. Typically
they are anywhere from one to three year contracts. There's
usually a lot of offset language in the contracts. I
(39:05):
can't give that information out because I'd be violating my contract.
But with any contract, there's a lot of fine print
at the bottom that typically protects the employee er and
not the employee as much. That's just how most businesses work,
and so that's that's not a surprise. He also says,
how long are they as I said, one to three years?
(39:29):
And how do they handle time off? Do you get
paid time off? He says, wow, look at this, do
they have buyouts in other ways to end them early.
And again it depends on the contract. I do get
paid time off. I do not take most of my
time off. I don't do that. And the reason I
don't do that two reasons. I'm a workaholic. That's one reason.
(39:53):
The second reason. The key to to audience retention in
radio is being there and my experience from being in
the business. And I tell people who ask me this
young broadcasters who are the next generation, I can't believe
I'm saying that, but I tell people who are interested
in the business, I say, the key to this is
(40:14):
being like a sofa. You have to be the sofa.
Now what do I mean by that? Let me explain.
So the sofa is there when you need it. It's
also there when you don't need it. But if you
go into a room and you want to sit on
the sofa and there's no sofa there, and maybe there's
a shitty chair, you're not gonna like that. And that's
(40:38):
the way radio is. Radio and the person If you
like a show, and and that's a big thing that
gets somebody to like you, you know how hard that is.
You have so many freaking options to listen to and
to listen to my fat ass. And so the way
I look at this, you gotta be there. You gotta
be the sofa. You might not listen to me. Maybe
(41:00):
you only work a couple of days a week, and
I'm there every night. I got the weekend podcast. But
I gotta be there when you need me. That's the
way I look at that. And maybe I'm wrong and
I'm dumb and all that. My wife tells me I
should take take a hell of a lot more time off,
and I do have some family events that I will
be taking some time off for, but I try to
(41:20):
make it rare and appropriate. Again, one of a praise
the phrases I use a lot. But it's very important
to be there. And that's how you keep an audience,
and that's how you keep people engaged and you keep
people interested. And if you're not there, there's there's a
line Jim Rome had and Jim's a legend in the business.
And I'm not mocking Jim, but Jim is legendary for
(41:41):
taking a lot of vacation time as well. And he
used to say, well, I take a lot of vacation
because I get a lot of vacation and that's true.
I get a lot of vacation to considering the backbreaking
work of having to talk for a living, but it
feels more are important to be there. I don't even
(42:02):
like taking time off over the holidays. I typically save.
I have to take a certain number of days every year,
so I typically save that till the week between Christmas
and New Year's and that's that's standard when I take
my time up. Anyway, we've gone very very long here,
very long, bad job by me, So I will now,
all right, I calm down, I will do that right now,
(42:26):
and I hope you've enjoyed this. And uh wow, nice,
I understand. And nobody called up. Not a single person
called up and said that, so we didn't have to
deal with that at all. Have a wonderful rest of
your Saturday. If you're interested in cameo, I am on
cameo dot com. Did another cameo this week. Had a
(42:48):
great time with that. And if you'd like to have
a personalized message for you, a Mallard monologue dedicated to you,
then please contact me on cameo. It's not free, but
it's not that much. There's people charging a lot more
than me. Most people are charging more than me, but
check it out and we'd love to do it for you.
(43:11):
And don't forget the mail bag on Sundays Sunday Sunday
and we'll catch you next time. Aloha,
Host
Ben Maller
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